UC-NRLF 


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IvIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California 

Mrs.  SARAH  P.  WALSWORTH. 

Received  October,  i8g4. 
lAcccssions  No.SKi>^^3  -      Class  No. 


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DOES  THE  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  TEACH 


EXCLUSIVE   VALIDITY 


ITS    OWN   ORDERS? 


BY 


THE    REV.   WILLIAM    GOODE,    M.A. 


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PROTESTANT    EPISCOPAL    SOCIETY    FOR    THE    PROMOTION    OF 

EVANGELICAL    KNOWLEDGE. 

11      BIBLE     HOUSE,     ASTOR     PLACE, 

And  1224  Chestnut  Street,  Philadelphia. 


S^1^3 


JOHN   A.   GRAY, 

^duter,  5tcrtotapfr,  anU  33intitr, 

i6  &,1S  Jacob  Street,  New-York. 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


In  the  year  1851,  a  member  of  the  Tractarian  party  who  had 
joined  the  Church  of  Rome,  addressed  a  note,  under  a  false  name,  to 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  reqiiesttn^  an  expression  of  his  opin- 
ion on  the  subject  discussed  in  the  following  tract. 

The  Archbishop's  reply,  in  which  he  repudiated  the  notion  of  the 
exclusive  validity  of  Episcopal  orders,  was  immediately  published, 
with  the  view  of  bringing  upon  the  writer  the  odium  of  the  Tractarian 
party. 

This  result  of  course  followed ;  and  the  Archbishop  was  assailed 
with  the  rudeness  and  violence  which  so  often  mark  the  controversies 
of  parties  conscious  of  their  weakness. 

The  Archbishop,  of  course,  could  not  reply  to  such  assaults  from 
such  a  quarter  ;  but  the  cause  of  truth  has  derived  this  signal  advan- 
tage from  them :  the  calling  out  of  the  Rev.  and  learned  William 
Goode,  author  of  the  works  on  the  Rule  of  Faith,  Baptism,  and  the 
Eucharist.  Mr.  Goode  submitted,  in  the  Christian  Observer  for  No- 
vember, 1851,  his  *' Vindication  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Church  of 
England  on  the  validity  of  the  Orders  of  the  Scotch  and  Foreign  Non- 
Episcopal  Churches,"  which  not  only  vindicated  the  Archbishop,  but 
placed  upon  impregnable  ground  before  the  public  that  whole  class  of 
Churchmen,  including,  as  Mr.  Goode  asserts,  "  at  least  seven  tenths  of 
the  Clergy  of  the  English  Church,"  and  more  than  nineteen  twen- 


iv  ADYERTISE]MENT. 

tieths  of  the  Laity  who  agree  with  the  Primate,  many  of  whom, 
though  not  doubting  the  truth  of  their  position,  were  unaware  of 
the  full  extent  of  the  proofs  which  support  it. 

It  was  at  once  perceived  that  unless  this  argument  could  be  over- 
thrown, the  cause  of  the  High  Church  party,  on  the  score  of  church 
authority,  was  lost.  His  work  was  therefore  attacked  with  still 
greater  asperity  by  the  Bishop  of  Exeter,  Archdeacon  Churton,  and 
others  deemed  best  qualified  for  the  task ;  to  all  of  whom  Mr. 
Goode  replied,  substantiating  every  position  he  had  taken  by  an  array 
of  historical  proofs  which  puts  the  question  beyond  the  reach  o 
further  candid  dispute.  In  the  course  of  the  controversy,  the  fact 
came  out  that  the  advocates  of  exclusiveness — even  the  most  promi- 
nent of  them,  to  whose  claim  to  superior  learning  the  world  had 
been  accustomed  to  defer — were  exceedingly  ill-informed  of  the  facts 
which  are  decisive  in  the  argument.  This  was  candidly  admitted  by 
Mr.  Maskell,  the  Bishop  of  Exeter's  Chaplain,  who  said  that  the  facts 
were  new  to  him,  that  they  were  incontrovertible,  and  so  contrary  to 
what  he  had  been  led  to  suppose  from  the  positive  assertions  of  his 
party,  that,  with  his  views,  he  could  no  longer,  with  any  conscious- 
ness of  integrity,  remain  in  the  Church.  He  therefore  seceded  to  the 
Church  of  Rome,  declaring  it  impossible  to  deny  that  the  authorities 
of  the  Church  were  with  not  only  the  merely  Protestant^  but  with 
the  "  Evangelical "  portion  of  it. 

The  following  tract  is  a  condensed  statement  of  Mr.  Goode's  argu- 
ment, as  contained  in  the  works  above  referred  to,  with  an  introduc- 
tion, notes,  and  other  original  matter.  Its  plan  has  been  submitted 
to  Mr.  Goode,  and  meets  his  approval — although,  of  course,  he  is  not 
responsible  for  any  thing  here  which  is  not  found  in  the  larger  work 
republished  in  this  country  in  1853. 


INTRODUCTION. 


This  tract  is  issued  from  the  conviction  that  there  can 
be  no  end  of  controversy  in  the  Episcopal  Church  so 
long  as  the  point  which  it  discusses  remains  unsettled. 
Whatever  compromises  may  be  effected,  they  Avill  be 
only  temporary,  or  as  a  truce,  so  long  as  room  is  left 
for  candid  minds  to  doubt  whether  the  Church  itself 
does  not  teach  the  exclusive  vaUdity  of  its  own  orders. 

In  order  to  a  clearer  comprehension  of  the  whole 
subject,  the  following  summary  of  points  is  submitted : 

1.  The  doctrine  of  the  Church  of  England  and  of 
our  own  upon  the  question  in  debate  being  identical, 
whatever  settles  it  for  one  settles  it  for  both. 

2.  The  preface  to  the  Ordinal  says  :  "  It  is  evident 
unto  all  men  diligently  reading  Holy  Scripture  and 
ancient  authors,  that  from  the  apostles'  time  there  have 
been  these  orders,"  etc. 

3.  While  the  Evangelical  portion  of  the  Episcopal 
Church  might  not  be  prepared  to  pronounce  upon  the 
diligence  of  those  readers  w^ho  have  failed  to  see  this, 
it  is  evident  to  themselves,  first,  "  from  Holy  Scripture," 
that  the  Church,  as  constituted  by  the  apostles,  had 
officers  who  exercised  substantially  the  same  powers  as 


VI  INTRODUCTION. 

those  exercised  by  our  present  bishops ;  and,  second, 
from  "  ancient  authors,"  it  is  evident  to  them  that  these 
orders  have  been  continued  in  the  Church  from  the 
apostles'  time,  and  they  accept  these  facts  as  adequate 
to  the  purpose  for  which  they  were  cited — namely,  a 
full  authorization  of  an  Episcopal  ministry.     But, 

4.  The  theory  of  "apostolical  succession"  as  known 
in  controversy,  goes  far  beyond  this,  and  raises  Epis- 
copacy to  a  level  with  things  positively  commanded, 
such  as  baptism  and  the  Lord's  supper  ;  so  that  without 
it  there  can  be  no  valid  ministry  and  no  valid  sacra- 
ments, and  no  body  of  professed  Christians  which  has 

it  not  can  form  any  part  of  that  Church  to  which  the    , . 
promises  are  made  in  Scripture.     It  holds  farther  that    W 
any  broken  link  in  this  personal  and  tactual  succession 
of  bishoj)s,  whether  known  or  unknown,  would  be  fatal 
to  all  Church  character  thereafter. 

5.  Those  and  those  only  who  hold  this  theory  are, 
strictly  speaking.  High  Churchmen^  and  it  was  to  the 
holders  of  it  exclusively  that  the  term  was  originally 
applied. 

6.  The  term  is  often  used  in  a  looser  sense,  and  ap- 
plied to  those  who  attach  great  importance  to  her 
minor  observances,  and  are  rigid  in  their  observance  of 
its  rubrics  and  forms,  but  who,  nevertheless,  repudiate 
altogether  the  notion  of  the  exclusive  validity  of  Epis- 
coj)al  orders.  In  this  larger  but  less  accurate  sense  it 
is  sometimes  employed  by  Mr.  Goode,  as  when  he 
applies  it  to  Cosin  Bancroft  and  others,  but  in  this  re- 
print it  is  a2:)plied  only  to  those  who  hold  the  tlieory  of 
"  exclusive  validity."  It  may  also  be  added  that  the 
definition  given  above  is  approved  bv Mr.  Goode  himself. 

7.  The  "  Low  Church  "  view  is,(^hat  Episcopacy  has 
apostolic  precedent,  but  not  apostolic  commandy  Those 


INTRODUCTIOIS".  VU 

wlio  accept  this  view  take  the  precedent  to  be  binding 
upon  themselves,  and  think  it  should  be  held  binding 
by  all.  But  (to  use  the  language  of  the  old  divines) 
they  do  not  believe  Episcopacy  to  be  essential  to  the 
being  of  a  church,  but  only  to  its  better  being.  Had  the 
theory  of  the  "  apostolical  succession  "  been  true,  with 
all  the  consequences  which  flow  from  it,  they  think  it 
could  not  have  been  left  without  some  divine  command. 

8.  For  the  use  of  these  terms,  it  is  a  sufficient  reason 
that  it  would  be  impossible  to  discuss  the  important 
doctrines  which  they  represent  without  them,  or  some 
more  cumbrous  forms  of  speech  which,  nevertheless, 
must  be  made  to  mean  precisely  the  same  things.  It  is 
important,  also,  in  such  discussions,  to  aim  at  exactness 
of  definition,  not  only  for  the  more  easy  and  certain 
ascertainment  of  truth,  but  to  prevent  the  parties 
whose  views  are  controverted  from  thinking  them- 
selves misunderstood  or  wronged. 

9.  While  the  theory  of  the  "  apostolical  succession  " 
was  not  universally  held  in  the  Church  of  Rome  itself 
before  the  Reformation,  no  trace  of  it  is.  to  be  found  in 
the  Church  of  England  until  the  time  of  Archbishop 
Laud,  who  was  the  first  to  introduce  it.  The  attempt 
to  enforce  it,  with  its  associated  political  system,  over- 
threw both  the  Church  and  the  State,  and  finally  proved 
fatal  to  the  house  of  Stuart,  who  were  the  blind  votaries 
of  both. 

10.  Connected  with  the  theory  of  the  "  apostolical 
succession,"  and  growing  out  of  it,  there  is  commonly 
found  a  theory  of  regeneration  and  its  related  doctrines 
incompatible  with  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith ; 
and  hence  results  a  system  which  is  anti-evangelical — 
generally  in  terms,  and  always  in  its  tendencies  and 
spirit. 


Vm  INTKODUCnOX. 

11.  The  theory  of  the  "  apostolical  succession,"  with 
its  inevitable  and  often  admitted  consequences,  brings 
those  who  hold  it  into  direct  and  irreconcilable  conflict 
with  the  facts  of  God's  providence — such,  for  example, 
as  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  existing  outside  of  this  suc- 
cession for  three  hundred  years  without  diminution  of 
amount  or  quality. 

12.  If  the  theory  of  the  "apostolical  succession"  be 
taught  in  Scripture,  it  justly  unchurches  a  very  large 
proportion  of  Protestant  Christendom.  If  it  be  held 
by  the  Cl^urch  of  England,  she  also  necessarily  excom- 
municates all  other  Protestant  churches  so  called — not 
only  those  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  but  all  the 
churches  of  the  Reformation  in  Germany,  Holland, 
France,  and  Switzerland.  But  if  the  Bible  does  not  ^ 
teach  it,  it  is  monstrous  in  men  to  invent  it ;  and  if  the\ 
Church  of  England  does  not  teach  it,  then  those  who 
have  propounded  and  pressed  it  as  hers  are  responsible 

for  that  uninterru]Dted  succession  of  war  which  it  has 
produced,  not  only  between  Episcopalians  and  all  other 
Protestants,  but  among  Episcopalians  themselves.  The 
holders  of  this  theory  are,  moreover,  as  has  been  well 
remarked,  challenged  by  every  law  of  consistency  to 
take  their  places  as  spectators,  while  those  whom  it  casts 
out  of  the  Church  and  out  of  the  covenant — such  as 
Luther  and  Baxter,  Brainerd  and  Jonathan  Edwards — 
are  sent  down  alive  into  the  pit. 

13.  It  will  not  probably  be  contended  that  the  great 
mass  of  the  people  in  the  Episcopal  Church  are,  or  ever 
have  been.  High  Churchmen.  It  is  certain  that  the  pro- 
portion of  those  holding  this  extreme  theory  never  has 
been  relatively  so  small,  since  the  revolution  of  1688,  as 
it  is  now ;  and  hence,  from  the  ill-success  of  its  advo- 
cates in  teaching  it  even  in  their  own  Church,  it  might 

/  \ 


IXTRODUCTIOX.  IX 

be  supposed  they  would  be  utterly  discouraged,  even 
if  they  do  not  see  by  this  time  the  impossibility  of 
making  it  a  condition  of  all  Christian  progress. 

14.  There  is  a  tendency  in  all  independent  churches 
seeking  to  occupy  the  same  ground,  to  magnify  the 
peculiarities  which  distinguish  them,  especially  on  the 
l^art  of  their  officers,  whose  interests  are  more  imme- 
diately connected  with  the  favor  with  which  those 
pecuharities  are  received. 

15.  Uncharitableness  is  no  less  a  sin  in  Episcopalians, 
because  they  are  themselves  its  victims  at  the  hands  of 
others;  and  as  a  warning  against  those  tempers  and 
condemnatory  judgments  to  which  extreme  opinions 
tend  in  the  quarrels  which  they  produce,  let  it  be  re- 
membered that  it  is  in  their  reflex  bearing  alone  that 
such  judgments  become  absolutely  determinative.  "  It 
is  when  taken  in  this  light  that  every  sentence  tells ; 
nor  could  eternal  justice  itself  ask  for  evidence  more 
conclusive  than  that  which  is  comprised  in  the  de- 
liberately pronounced  opinions  which  we  form  or  assent 
to  when  other  men  are  judged.  We  decide,  in  each 
instance,  according  to  our  own  dispositions,  principles, 
and  moral  condition." 

16.  High  Churchism  was  the  sin  of  the  Puritans,  who^ 
equalled  Laud  in  denominational  intolerance.  Presby- 
tery was  of  divine  right,  in  the  most  exclusive  sense. 
Every  thing  but  Presbytery  was  "Antichrist."  But 
having  nothing  in  Scripture  or  history  to  sustain  such  a 
theory,  and  no  earthly  interests  consjoiring  to  keep  it  up, 
they  soon  fell  a  prey  to  the  reactions  which  it  produced. 

17.  If  it  be  alleged  that  the  theory  of  "exclusive 
validity"  is  the  safer  theory  for  the  conservation  of 
the  Church,  as  more  certainly  insuring  a  devotion  to  its 


X  INTRODUCTIOX. 

interests,  it  is  denied  both  on  theoretical  and  historic 
grounds ;  for, 

(1.)  The  safety  of  the  Church  of  England,  as  a  Pro- 
testant Church,  must  depend  upon  its  being  kept  upon 
the  broad  Protestant  foundation  on  which  the  Reform- 
ers placed  it.  The  danger  results  from  narrowing  the 
base  and  elevating  the  structure  after  the  manner  of 
the  obelisks  which  are  prostrated  while  the  pyramids 
remain. 

(2.)  Nearly  every  secession  from  the  Church — as 
many  as  forty  to  one — has  been  from  the  ranks  of  those 
who  held  the  theory  of  "  apostolical  succession  "  in  the 
most  exclusive  sense,  while  those  repudiating  this 
theory  have  chiefly  furnished  the  men  whose  labors 
have  given  extension  to  the  Church,  promoted  its 
spiritual  life,  attached  the  masses  of  the  people  to  it, 
irrespective  of  merely  eleemosynary  establishments  at 
home,  and  exclusively  those  who  have  propagated  it,  in 
connection  with  the  Gospel,  in  heathen  lands. 

18.  The  Reformed  Churches  on  the  Continent  being, 
from  their  geographical  position,  most  exposed  in  the 
conflict  with  Rome,  had  a  rightful  claim  to  the  sympathy 
and  cooperation  of  the  Reformed  Church  of  England, 
w^hich  was  providentially  the  best  secured  and  most 
powerful  of  them  all. 

19.  This  sympathy  was  extended,  to  the  great  benefit 
'  of  England  herself,  until  the  time  of  Laud.     It  was 

reextended  by  the  Church  of  the  Commonwealth,  not 
only  to  the  terror  of  the  "  bloody  Piedmontese,"  but  of 
every  papal  throne  in  Europe.  It  was  again  withdrawn 
at  the  Restoration,  partially  restored  at  the  Revolution 
of  1688,  and  now  is  but  feebly  felt,  when  the  Protestant 
interests  of  the  Church  of  England  itself  demand  that 
it  be  vioforous  and  unremitted. 


INTRODUCTION.  XI 


20.  The  Episcopal  Church,  in  its  doctrine,  discipline, 
and  worship,  is  firmly  seated  in  the  judgment  and 
affections  of  its  Evangelical  members,  probably  never 
so  much  so  as  at  present.  This  Church  has  an  illustri- 
ous past — taken  now  in  its  totality,  it  is  by  far  the  most'' 
powerful  of  the  ch^irches  of  the  Keforraation.  Its 
future^  if  faithful  to  its  constitution,  will  be  still  more 
illustrious  in  the  work  of  evangelizing  the  world.  In 
this  work  it  has  capabilities  sufiicient  to  engross  all  the 
powers  of  its  members,  without  diminishing  aught, 
either  in  theory  or  in  action,  from  what  is  being  done 
by  other  Christians  in  the  same  work. 

21.  In  view  of  the  whole  state  of  the  Christian  in- 
terest and  the  signs  of  the  times,  it  was  never  a  ques- 
tion of  such  urgent  practical  importance  as  now — not 
what  peculiarities  of  the  different  Protestant  churches, 
as  such,  may  be  yielded,  in  order  to  their  fusion  into 
one,  but  what  are  the  dogmas  and  tempers  in  each 
which  produce  discord  and  weakness  among  themselves, 
needlessly  alienate  them  from  one  another,  and  so  pre- 
vent them  from  bearing  down,  with  united  force,  upon 
the  very  body  of  sin  and  death  as  exhibited  in  the 
forms  of  Romanism,  Rationalism,  and  Paganism. 


THE  DOCTRINE,  ETC. 


The  present  question  is  simply  tliis — ^wlietlier  it  is 
a  doctrine  of  the  Church,  of  England  that  Episcopal 
ordination  is  a  sine  qua  non  to  constitute  a  valid 
Christian  ministry?  In  order  to  a  true  answer  we 
must  examine 

I.  The  Articles  and  other  formularies  which  relate  to  it 
taken  in  their  literal  sense, 

II.  The  opinions  of  those  laho  drew  up  these  standards^ 
as  ascertained  hy  their  other  writings^  to  he  taken  as 
guides  to  the  sense  in  which  they  intended  those  stand- 
ards to  he  received^  as  also  the  opinions  of  the  leading 
divines  of  the  Church  onward  for  a  hundred  years, 

III.  The  PRACTICE  of  the  Church  for  a  similar  period^ 
as  a  further  guide  to  the  true  interpretation  of  the 
standards. 

I.  The  Articles  and  other  formularies.  The  23d  Ar- 
ticle reads  as  follows :  "  It  is  not  lawful  for  any  man 
to  take  upon  him  the  pffice  of  public  preaching  or 
ministering  the  sacraments  in  the  congregation,  before 
he  be  lawfully  called  and  sent  to  execute  the  same ; 
and  those  we  ought  to  judge  lawfully  called  and  sent 
which  bQ  chosen  and  called  to  this  work  by  men  who 
have  public  authority  given  unto  them  in  the  congre- 


14  THE  DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

gallon  to  call  and  send  ministers  into  the  Lord^s  vine- 
yard." 

It  must  be  observed  liow  carefully  this  is  worded, 
so  as  not  to  limit  a  lawful  ministry  to  those  who  have 
EjDiscopal  ordination,  and  it  is  hardly  possible  for  one 
acquainted  with  the  circumstances  of  the  times  in 
which  it  was  written  to  read  it  and  not  see  that  this 
carefulness  was  for  the  very  purpose  of  not  excluding 
the  ministry  of  the  Foreign  Non-Episcopal  Churches. 

But  a  more  authentic  interpretation  of  this  Article 
can  hardly  be  conceived  than  that  given  by  Thomas 
Rogers,  chaplain  to  Archbishop  Bancroft,  in  his  Ex- 
position of  the  Articles^  published  in  1607,  as  "perused, 
and  by  the  lawful  authority  of  the  Church  of  England 
allowed  to  be  public,"  and  which  the  Archbishop  or- 
dered all  the  parishes  in  his  province  to  supply  them- 
selves with.  He  deduces  from  the  Article  the  six  fol- 
lowing propositions : 

"1.  None  publicly  may  preach  but  such  as  thereunto  are  author- 
ized. 2.  They  must  not  be  silent  who  by  office  are  bound  to  preach. 
3.  The  sacraments  may  not  be  administered  in  the  congregation  but 
by  a  lawful  minister.  4.  There  is  a  lawful  ministry  in  the  Church. 
5.  They  are  lawful  ministers  which  be  ordained  by  men  lawfully  ap- 
pointed to  the  calling  and  sending  forth  of  ministers.  6.  Before  min- 
isters are  to  be  ordained,  they  are  to  be  chosen  and  called." 

And  then,  proceeding  to  point  out  the  testimonies 
we  have  in  favor  of  the  truth  of  these  propositions,  he 
observes  upon  each,  as  he  comes  to  it,  that  the  For- 
eign Reformed  Churches  maintain  it.  On  the  first, 
"  All  this  is  acknowledged  by  the  Reformed  Church- 
es ;"  referring  to  the  Helvetic,  Bohemic,  French,  and 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  15 

other  Confessions.  On  the  second:  ''Hereunto  bear 
witness  all  the  Churches  of  God  which  be  purged 
from  superstition  and  errors ;"  referring  to  the  same 
Confessions.  On  the  third:  "Hereunto  do  the 
Churches  of  God  subscribe ;"  referring  to  the  same 
Confessions.  On  the  fourth:  "A truth  also  approved 
by  the  Churches;"  referring  to  the  same  Confessions. 
On  the  fifth:  "So  testify  with  us  the  true  Churches 
elsewhere  in  the  world;"  referring  to  the  same  Con- 
fessions. On  the  sixth:  "And  this  do  the  Churches 
Protestant  by  their  Confessions  approve ;"  referring 
to  the  same  Confessions.^ 

And  this  is  not  only  a  testimony  as  to  the  meaning 
of  the  Article,  but  as  to  the  light  in  which  the  For- 
eign Non-Episcopal  Churches  were  then  regarded  by 
the  authorities  of  our  Church,  even  by  Archbishop 
Bancroft. 

Proceeding  to  a  later  period,  we  find  Bishop  Bur- 
net thus  commenting  on  this  Article : 

"If  a  company  of  Christians  find  the  public  worship  where  they 
live  to  be  so  defiled  that  they  can  not  with  a  good  conscience  join  in 
it,  and  if  they  do  not  know  of  any  place  to  which  they  can  conveni- 
ently go,  where  they  may  worship  God  purely  and  in  a  regular  way ; 
if,  I  say,  such  a  body,  finding  some  that  have  been  ordained,  though 
to  the  lower  functions,  should  submit  itself  entirely  to  their  conduct, 
or  finding  none  of  those,  should  by  a  common  consent  desire  some  of 
their  own  number  to  minister  to  them  in  holy  things,  and  should 
upon  that  beginning  grow  up  to  a  regulated  constitution,  though  we 
are  very  sure  that  this  is  quite  out  of  all  rule,  and  could  not  be  done 

*  "The  Faith,  Doctrine,  and  Religion,  &c.,  expressed  in  39  Articles,  &c. ;  the 
gaid  Articles  analyzed  into  propositions,  and  the  propositions  proved  to  be  agree- 
able both  to  the  written  word  of  God  and  to  the  extant  Confessions  of  all  the 
neighbor  Churches  Chriatianly  reformed.^''    1607.    4to. 


16  THE   DOCTRIXE,  ETC. 

without  a  very  great  sin,  unless  the  necessity  were  great  and  appar- 
ent ;  yet  if  the  necessity  is  real  and  not  feigned,  this  is  not  con- 
demned or  annulled  by  the  Article  ;  for  when  this  grows  to  a  consti- 
tution, and  when  it  was  begun  by  the  consent  of  a  Body,  who  are 
supposed  to  have  an  authority  in  such  an  extraordinary  case,  whatever 
some  hotter  spirits  have  thought  of  this  since  that  time^  yet  we  are 
very  sure^  that  not  only  those  ivho  penned  the  Articles^  hut  the  Body 
of  this  Church  for  above  half  an  age  after,  did^  notioithstandlng  those 
irregularities^  acknowledge  the  Foreign  Churches^  so  constituted,  to  be 
true  Churches  as  to  all  the  essentials  of  a  Church,  though  they  had 
been  at  first  irregularly  formed,  and  continued  still  to  be  in  om  im- 
perfect state.  And  therefore  the  general  words  in  which  this  part  of 
the  Article  is  framed,  seem  to  have  been  designed  on  purpose  not  to 
exclude  them.^''  (Burnet's  Exposition  of  the  XXXIX.  Articles,  5th 
ed.  1746.) 

And  Professor  Hey  justly  remarks,  tliat  fhe  ex- 
pression, "who  have  public  authority  given  unto 
them  in  the  congregation,"  "seems  to  leave  the  man- 
ner of  giving  the  power  of  ordaining  quite  free :  it 
■seems  as  if  any  religious  society  might,  consistently 
with  this  Article,  appoint  ofiicers,  with  power  of  or- 
dination, by  election,  representation,  or  lot;  as  if, 
therefore,  the  right  to  ordain  did  not  depend  upon 
any  uninterrupted  succession,''^  {Lectures  in  Divinity^ 
2d  ed.  1822,  vol.  iv.  p.  166.) 

The  same  view  is  taken  of  the  meaning  of  this  Ar- 
ticle by  Bishop  Tomline,  ordinarily  considered  a  sujffi- 
ciently  high  churchman.  {Expos,  of  Art  ed.  1799,  p. 
376.) 

It  is  quite  clear  that  the  words  of  the  Article  do 
not  maintain  the  necessity  of  Episcopal  ordination ; 
and  consequently,  as  the  object  of  the  Article  is  to 
show  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of  Eno;land  on  the 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  17 

subject,  it  can  not  be  said  that  the  Church  of  England 
maintains  it.  No  one,  therefore,  has  a  right  to  put 
forth  such  a  doctrine  as  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of 
England. 

This  is  the  only  place  in  which  our  Church  touches 
the  question  of  ordination  in  the  abstract ;  and  we  see 
that  it  is  carefully  worded,  so  as  to  be  consistent  with 
the  constitution  of  the  Foreign  Eeformed  Churches. 
We  shall  see  hereafter  whether  the  contemporary  in- 
terpretation of  the  Article  does  not  entirely  accord 
with  that  given  above. 

The  Preface  to  the  Ordi:n^ation  Service  reads 
as  follows : 

"  It  is  evident  unto  all  men,  dilfgently  reading  Holy  Scripture  and 
ancient  Authors,  that,  from  the  Apostles'  time,  there  have  been  these 
Orders  of  Ministers  in  Christ's  Church — Bishops,  Priests,  and  Dea- 
cons. Which  Offices  were  evermore  had  in  such  reverend  Estimation, 
that  no  man  might  presume  to  execute  any  of  them,  except  he  were 
first  called,  tried,  examined,  and  known  to  have  such  qualities  as  are 
requisite  for  the  same ;  and  also  by  public  Prayer,  with  Imposition  of 
Hands,  were  approved  and  admitted  thereunto  by  lawful  Authority. 
And  therefore  to  the  intent  that  these  Orders  may  be  continued,  and 
reverently  used  and  esteemed  in  this  Cliurch,  no  man  shall  be  ac- 
counted or  taken  to  be  a  lawful  Bishop,  Priest,  or  Deacon,  in  this 
Church,  or  suffered  to  execute  any  of  the  said  Functions,  except  he 
be  called,  tried,  examined,  and  admitted  thereunto,  according  to  the 
form  hereafter  following,  07'  hath  had  Epiacopal  Consecration  or  Or- 
dination.'''' 

Much  stress  is  laid  upon  this  Preface,  and  it  is  quo- 
ted as  the  Church's  declaration  of  the  invalidity  of 
Non-Episcopal  orders.  But  it  is  not  pretended  that 
the  language  itself  contains  any  such  declaration.  It 
is  an  inference.     Such  a  notion  it  is  said  must  have 


18  THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

been  in  the  minds  of  the  framers.  Yet  it  has  been 
shown  again  and  again  that  no  such  notion  could  by 
any  possibility  have  been  in  the  minds  of  the  framers, 
insomuch  that  we  can  not  suppress  our  amazement 
that  intelligent  controversialists  should  continue  to 
quote  it.  The  first  part  is  the  simple  statement  of  a 
fact,  without  intent  on  the  part  of  the  authors  to  pass 
upon  other  forms  of  government,  but  as  giving  a  suf- 
ficient warrant  for  their  own. 

The  second  part,  '^  or  hath  had  Episcopal  consecra- 
tion," etc.,  was  not  added  until  a  hundred  years  after, 
that  is  to  say  in  1661,  by  the  Laudean  party  under 
Charles  II.  But  even  this  goes  no  further  than  to 
make  Episcopal  orders  necessary  for  serving  in  an 
Episcopal  Church,  (which  is  manifestly  proper,)  those 
having  only  Presbyterian  orders  having  previously 
ministered  in  the  Church  of  England.  That  the 
Laudean  divines  did  personally  entertain  these  exclu- 
sive views  is  certain,  but  it  is  equally  certain  that 
they  could  have  procured  no  judgment  to  be  passed 
by  the  legislature  upon  the  character  of  the  Foreign 
Churches  or  the  validity  of  their  orders,  nor  does  it 
appear  that  they  attempted  it. 

We  are  therefore  unable  to  understand  the  follow- 
ing remarks  in  a  note  in  the  Bishop  of  London's  (the 
late  Bishop  Blomfield's)  sermons  on  the  Church. 
His  Lordship  says : 

"  Our  Reformers,  in  the  Book  of  Consecroftion,  approved  in  the 
36th  Article,  insist  strongly  on  the  necessity  of  Episcopal  ordination^ 
a  point  which,  as  Bishop  Sanderson  says,  '  has  been  constantly  and 
uniformly  maintained  by  our  best  writers,  and  by  all  the  sober,  or- 
derly, and  orthodox  sons  of  the  Church ;'  but  they  do  not  presume 


THE   DOCTKINE,  ETC.  19 

to  say  that  it  is  impossible,  under  any  circumstances,  for  a  Cliurch  to 
exist  without  it.  We  may,  however,  set  their  formal  approval  of  the 
Consecration  Book  against  the  private  opinions  of  Archbishop  Cran- 
mer,  in  his  answers  to  the  ninth  question  concerning  church  govern- 
ment."    (P.  62.) 

ISTow  the  simple  fact  is,  that  there  is  not  one  word 
about  "  the  necessity  of  Episcopal  ordination"  in  that 
book,  as  drawn  up  by  the  Eeformers,  and  sanctioned 
by  the  Article.  The  words  that  relate  to  that  point 
were  not  inserted  in  the  book  until  the  review  in  the 
time  of  Charles  II.,  and  then  refer  only  to  the  minis- 
try of  the  Church  of  England.  They  do  not  declare 
the  necessity  of  Episcopal  ordination  to  any  valid 
ministry;  nor  (we  think)  does  Bishop  Sanderson. 
Consequently,  the  last  observation  falls  to  the  ground ; 
and  we  may  observe,  that  "the  private  opinions  of 
Archbishop  Cranmer"  on  the  point,  as  shown  in  his 
Answers  (not  to  the  ninth,  but)  to  the  tenth  and 
eleventh  Questions  on  Church  Government,  were 
shared  with  him,  sufficiently  for  our  present  purpose^  by 
many  others  of  the  leading  divines  of  his  day. 

But  still  farther;  by  the  55th  Canon  of  1604,  all 
our  clergy  are  required,  in  the  bidding  prayer  before, 
or  rather  in  the  commencement  of  the  sermon,  to  pray 
for  "the  Church  of  Scotland."  Now  the  Church  of 
Scotland,  at  the  time  this  canon  was  passed,  was  Pres- 
byterian, as  it  now  is.  And,  consequently,  the  very 
men  who  are  now  protesting  against  the  recognition 
of  any  ordinations  as  valid  but  Episcopal,  and  con- 
tending that  it  is  the  doctrine  of  our  Church  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  a  valid  ministry  but  through  an 
apostolically    descended    episcopate,    are  by  canon 


20  THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

bound  solemnly  to  recognize  in  their  prayers  every 
Sunday  the  existence  of  a  valid  ministry  without  any 
such  ordination.  For  a  prayer  for  the  Presbyterian 
"Church  of  Scotland"  clearly  involves  such,  a  recog- 
nition. 

Some  of  her  majesty's  predecessors  have  occasion- 
ally ordered  this  canon  to  be  observed.  It  would  be 
but  a  fair  return  (though  we  are  far  from  desiring  it) 
for  the  remarks  in  which  certain  parties  are  often  in- 
dulging themselves,  that  they  should  be  favored  with 
a  similar  order.  They  are  very  fond  of  appealing  to 
rubrics  and  canons,  when  they  suit  their  purpose ; 
and  none,  we  will  venture  to  say,  would  be  more  un- 
willing, consistently  and  impartially,  to  carry  them  out 
into  jDractice."^ 

11.  We  come  now  to  the  ground  taken  on  this  sub- 
ject by  our  early  divines.  This,  in  the  absence  of 
any  definite  statement  on  the  subject  in  our  Formula- 
ries, is  clearly  the  best  indication  we  can  have  of  the 
mind  of  our  Church  respecting  it,  and  of  the  meaning 
of  any  indirect  notices  touching  it  in  our  authoritative 
documents. 

Let  us  first  hear  what  Mr.  Keble  himself  is  com- 
pelled to  admit  on  this  point.     Thus  he  writes  : 

*'  Since  the  Episcopal  succession  had  been  so  carefully  retained  in 
the  Church  of  England,  and  so  much  anxiety  evinced  to  render  both 
her  Liturgy  and  Ordination  services  strictly  conformable  to  the  rules 
and  doctrines  of  antiquity,  it  might  have  been  expected,  that  the  de- 
fenders of  the  English  hierarchy  against  the  first  Puritans  should  take 
the  highest  ground,  and  challenge  for  the  bishops  the  same  unreserv- 

*  For  a  further  examination  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Article  see  Appendix  A. 


THE   DOCTKINE,  ETC.  21 

ed  submission,  on  the  same  plea  of  exclusive  apostolic  prerogative, 
which  their  adversaries  feared  not  to  insist  on  for  their  elders  and 
deacons.  It  is  notorious,  however,  that  such  was  not  in  general  the 
line  preferred  [it  was  never  adopted,  as  is  confessed  presently]  by 
Jewel,  Whitgift,  Bishop  Cooper,  and  others,  to  whom  the  manage- 
ment of  that  controversy  was  intrusted  during  the  early  part  of  Eliza- 
beth's reign.  They  do  not  expressly  disavow,  but  they  carefully 
shun,  that  unreserved  appeal  to  Christian  antiquity,  in  which  one 
would  have  thought  they  must  have  discerned  the  very  strength  of 
their  cause  to  lie.  It  is  enough,  with  them,  to  show  that  the  govern- 
ment by  archbishops  and  bishops  is  ancient  and  allowable ;  they 
never  venture  to  urge  its  exclusive  claim,  or  to  connect  the  succession 
with  the  validity  of  the  holy  sacraments  ;  and  yet  it  is  obvious,  that 
such  a  course  of  argument  alone  (supposing  it  borne  out  by  facts) 
could  fully  meet  all  the  exigencies  of  the  case.  It  must  have  occur- 
red to  the  learned  writers  above  mentioned,  since  it  was  the  received 
doctrine  of  the  Church  down  to  their  days ;  and  if  they  had  disap- 
proved it,  as  some  theologians  of  no  small  renown  have  since  done,  it 
seems  unlikely  that  they  should  have  passed  it  over  without  some  ex- 
press avowal  of  dissent ;  considering  that  they  always  wrote  with  an 
eye  to  the  pretensions  of  Rome  also,  which  popular  opinion  had  in  a 
great  degree  mixed  up  with  this  doctrine  of  apostolical  succession.'' 
.  .  .  .  "  Farther,  it  is  obvious  that  those  divines  in  particular 
who  had  been  instrumental  but  a  little  before  in  the  second  change 
of  the  Liturgy  in  King  Edward's  time,  must  have  felt  themselves  in 
some  measure  restrained  from  pressing  with  its  entire  force  the  eccle- 
siastical tradition  on  church  government  and  orders,  inasmuch  as  in 
the  aforesaid  revision  they  had  given  up  altogether  the  same  tradi- 
tion, regarding  certain  very  material  points  in  the  celebration,  if  not 

in  the  doctrine,  of  the  holy  Eucharist It  should  seem 

that  those  who  were  responsible  for  these  omissions  must  have  felt 
themselves  precluded,  ever  after,  from  urging  the  necessity  of  Epis- 
copacy, or  of  any  thing  else,  on  the  ground  of  uniform  Church  tradi- 
tion."* 

Sucli  a  passage  as  this  presents  many  topics  for  re- 
mark ;  and  we  may  observe,  in  passing,  that  the  doc- 

*  Keble's  Pref.  to  Hooker,  pp.  lix. — Ixii. 


22  THE   DOCTRIlSrE,  ETC. 

trine  of  the  necessity  of  Episcopacy  seems  to  be  con- 
fessedly rested  on  tradition.  But  the  object  for  which 
we  have  quoted  it,  is  to  show  the  difficulties  in  which 
Mr.  Keble  confessedly  finds  himself  involved  in  deal- 
ing with  the  views  of  our  early  divines  on  this  sub- 
ject. He  admits,  that  they  *' never  venture  to  urge 
the  exclusive  claim  of  the  government  by  archbishops 
and  bishops,  or  to  connect  the  succession  with  the  va- 
lidity of  the  holy  sacraments."  But  then  it  is  hinted 
that  they  may  have  held  it,  because  they  have  not 
given  an  "express  avowal  of  dissent"  from  it. 

Now  we  hope  our  readers  have  too  good  an  opinion 
of  the  honesty  and  fair  dealing  of  those  venerable 
men,  not  to  feel  assured,  that,  if  they  had  held  the 
doctrine  of  the  absolute  necessity  of  the  Episcopal 
form  of  church  government,  they  would  have  said  so. 
Can  we  suppose  that,  in  the  midst  of  that  intimate 
intercourse  and  communion  they  maintained  with  the 
Foreign  Non-Episcopal  Churches,  they  would  never 
have  admonished  them  of  the  fatal  effect  which  their 
want  of  the  Episcopal  form  of  church  government 
entailed  upon  their  ministrations  ?  Would  they  have 
acknowledged  their  ministers  in  the  way  they  did,  as 
fellow-laborers  in  the  Church  of  Christ  ? 

But  in  fact  we  shall  find,  from  their  own  words, 
that  they  do^  virtually  at  least,  if  not  more  expressly, 
disavow  the  doctrine  advocated  by  Mr.  Keble  and  his 
party.  There  was  no  necessity,  at  a  time  when  no 
one  in  our  Church  thought  of  upholding  such  a  doc- 
trine, for  them  to  write  formally  and  expressly  against 
it.  But  they  do  disavow  such  a  notion,  writing  in  a 
way  irreconcilable  with  their  holding  it.     And  we 


THE   DOCTEINE,  ETC.  23 

must  add  farther,  that  it  will  be  found  that  the  authors 
whom  Mr.  Keble  quotes  as  having  first  advocated 
his  exclusive  doctrine  in  our  Church,  bear  witness 
against  it. 

Having  thus  seen  how  much  our  opponents  are 
compelled  to  concede,  let  us  proceed  to  consider  the 
following  testimonies : 

And  we  may  notice,  first,  that  even  in  the  time  of 
Henry  VIII.,  at  the  very  dawn  of  the  Eeformation, 
the  bishops  and  clergy  of  our  Church  put  forth  a 
document  containing  the  very  doctrine  on  which  the 
validity  of  Presbyterian  ordinations  has  been  chiefly 
rested,  namely,  the  parity  of  bishops  and  presbyters, 
with  respect  to  the  ministerial  powers,  essentially  and 
by  right  belonging  to  them.  In  the  Institution  of  a 
Chrisiian  Man^  put  forth  by  the  bishops  and  clergy 
in  1537,  we  read  as  follows : 

"As  touching  the  sacrament  of  holy  orders,  we  think  it  convenient 
that  all  bishops  and  preachers  shall  instruct  and  teach  the  people 
committed  unto  their  spiritual  charge,  first,  how  that  Christ  and  His 
apostles  did  institute  and  ordain,  in  the  New  Testament,  that  besides 
the  civil  powers  and  governance  of  kings  and  princes,  (which  is  called 
potestas  gladii,  the  power  of  the  sword,)  there  should  also  be  con- 
tinually in  the  Church  militant  certain  other  ministers  or  officers, 
which  should  have  special  power,  authority,  and  commission,  under 
Christ,  to  preach  and  teach  the  word  of  God  unto  His  people ;  to  dis- 
pense and  administer  the  sacraments  of  God  unto  them,"  etc.  etc. 

"That  this  office,  this  power  and  authority,  was  committed  and 
given  by  Christ  and  His  apostles  unto  certain  persons  only,  that  is  to 
say,  unto  priests  or  bishops,  whom  they  did  elect,  call,  and  admit 
thereunto,  by  their  prayer  and  imposition  of  their  hands." 

And,  speaking  of  *'  the  Sacrament  of  Orders"  to  be 
administered  by  the  bishop,  it  observes,  when  noticing 


24  THE   DOCTRIXE,  ETC. 

the  various  orders  in  tlie  Churcli  of  Eome :  "  The 
truth  isj  that  in  the  New  Testament  there  is  no  mention 
made  of  any  degrees  or  distinctions  in  orders^  hut  only  of 
deacons  or  ministers^  and  of  priests  or  bishops^  And 
throughout,  when  speaking  of  the  jurisdiction  and 
other  privileges  belonging  to  the  ministry,  it  sjDeaks 
of  them  as  belonging  to  "priests  and  bishops." 

Again,  in  the  revision  of  this  work  set  forth  by  the 
king  in  1543,  entitled  A  Necessary  Doctrine  and  Eru- 
dition for  any  Christian  Man,  in  the  chapter  on  "the 
Sacrament  of  Orders,"  priests  and  bishops  are  spoken 
of  as  of  the  same  order.  For  after  having  spoken  of 
Timothy  being  "ordered  and  consecrated  priest"  by 
St.  Paul,  and  remarked,  "whereby  it  appeareth  that 
St.  Paul  did  consecrate  and  order  priests  and  bishops 
by  the  imposition  of  his  hands ;  and  as  the  apostles 
themselves,  in  the  beginning  of  the  Church,  did  order 
priests  and  bishops,  so  they  appointed  and  willed  the 
other  bishops  after  them  to  do  the  like,  as  St.  Paul 
•  manifestly  showeth,  in  his  Epistle  to  Titus,  saying, 
etc.,  and  to  Timothy,  etc. ;"  it  subjoins,  shortly  after: 
"  Of  these  two  orders  only,  that  is  to  say,  priests  and 
deacons,  Scripture  maketh  express  mention,  and  how 
they  were  conferred  of  the  apostles  by  prayer  and 
imposition  of  their  hands.""^ 

Now  this  view  certainly  goes  far  to  remove  the 
difficulty  as  to  recognizing  tlie  validity  of  Presbterian 
ordination  in  the  absence  of  bishops  ;  and  this  view 
we  see  was  entertained  by  the  leading  bishops  and 
clergy  in  this  country  at  the  very  dawn  of  the  Re- 

*  See  Formularies  of  Faith,  etc.  pp.  101, 105,  278,  2S1.    Oxford,  1S25. 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  25 

formation;  and  tliose  wlio  are  at  all  acquainted  with 
Ecclesiastical  history,  know  that  this  view  had  long 
been  advocated  by  many  of  the  divines  of  the  Church 
of  Rome,  especially  among  the  scholastic  divines,  in- 
cluding their  great  founder,  Peter  Lombard,  the  Mas- 
ter of  the  Sentences. 

Our  opponents  are  fond  of  speaking  of  these  early 
documents,  published  at  the  very  dawn  of  the  Re- 
formation, as  authoritative  proofs  of  the  doctrine  of 
our  Church.  The  above  extracts  may  perhaps  show 
them,  that,  however  pleasant  the  first  taste  may  be, 
there  are  some  sours  mixed  up  with  the  Romish  sweets 
which  these  works  contain ;  and  if  they  will  have  the 
one,  they  must  be  satisfied  to  take  the  other. 

We  decline,  for  the  sake  of  a  momentary  gain,  to 
make  any  such  illegitimate  use  of  these  documents. 
But  this  we  do  say,  that  if  even  then  the  Tractarian 
doctrine  of  Episcopacy  was  not  held  by  our  Church, 
much  less  is  it  conceivable  that  it  was  held  after  the 
current  of  our  theology  had  taken  a  course  so  much 
more  decidedly  Protestant,  and  our  divines  were  re- 
cognizing the  ministers  of  the  Foreign  Non-Episcopal 
Churches  as  their  colleagues  in  the  ministry.  In  these 
extracts,  we  see  the  views  on  this  subject  with  which 
our  divines  commenced  the  work  of  Reformation ;  and 
it  will  hardly  be  urged  that,  when  they  went  forward 
on  every  other  point,  they  retrograded  in  this. 

But  we  have  still  stronger  testimony  to  the  views 

of  the  leading  divines  of  the  English  Church  at  this 

period.     In  the  autumn  of  1540,  certain  questions 

were  proposed  by  the  king  to  the  chief  bishops  and 

2 


26  THE   DOCmiNE,  ETC. 

divines  of  the  day,^  of  wTaicli  the  tenth  was  this  : 
"Whether  bishops  or  priests  were  first?  and  if  the 
priests  were  first,  then  the  priest  made  the  bishop." 
With  the  wording  of  this  question  we  have  nothing 
to  do,  and  should  certainly  be  sorry  to  be  made 
answerable  for  it ;  but  our  object  is  to  see  what  views 
were  elicited  in  the  answers.  Now  to  this  question 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (Granmer)  replied: 
"  The  bishops  and  priests  were  at  one  time,  and  were 
not  two  things,  but  both  one  office  in  the  beginning 
of  Christ's  religion."  The  Archbishop  of  York  (Lee) 
says  :  "  The  name  of  a  bishop  is  not  properly  a  name 
of  order ^  hut  a  name  of  office^  signifying  an  overseer. 
And  although  the  inferior  shepherds  have  also  care 
to  oversee  their  flock,  yet,  forsomuch  as  the  bishop's 
charge  is  also  to  oversee  the  shepherds,  the  name  of 
overseer  is  given  to  the  bishops,  and  not  to  the  other ; 
and  as  they  be  in  degree  higher,  so  in  their  consecra- 
tion we  find  difference  even  from  the  primitive  Church.' 
The  Bishop  of  London  (Bonner)  says:  "I  think  the 
bishops  were  first,  and  yet  I  think  it  is  not  of  import- 
ance^ whether  the  'priest  then  made  the  bishop^  or  else  the 
bishop  the  priest;  considering  (after  the  sentence  of  St. 
Jerome)  that  in  the  beginning  of  the  Church  there 
was  none  (or,  if  it  were,  very  small)  difference  between 
a  bishop  and  a  priest,  especially  touching  the  signifi- 
cation." The  Bishop  of  St.  David's,  (Barlow,)  and 
the  Bishop  elect  of  Westminster,  (Thirlby,)  held  that 
bishops  and  priests  ^^  at  the  beginning  were  all  one^ 


*  These  questions  and  answers  are  given  by  Burnet,  in  his  Histori/  oft^ie  Re- 
formation^ and  Callyer,  in  his  Ecclesiastical  History. 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  27 

Dr.  Eobertson,  in  liis  answer,  says :  ^'  Nee  opinor 
absurdum  esse,  ut  sacerdos  episcopum  consecret,  si 
episcopus  liaberi  non  potest."  Dr.  Cox  (afterwards 
Bishop  of  Ely)  says :  "  Although  by  Scripture  (as  St. 
Hierome  saith)  priests  and  bishops  be  one,  and  there- 
fore the  one  not  before  the  other,  yet  bishops,  as  they 
be  now,  were  after  priests,  and  therefore  made  of 
priests."  Dr.  Eedmayn,  the  learned  Master  of  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge,  says :  "  They  be  of  like  begin- 
ning, and  at  the  beginning  were  both  one,  as  St. 
Hierome  and  other  old  authors  show  by  the  Scripture 
whereof  one  made  another  indifferently."  Dr.  Edge- 
worth  says :  ^'  That  the  priests  in  the  primitive  Church 
made  bishops,  I  think  no  inconvenience,  (as  Jerome 
saith,  in  an  Epist  ad  Evagrium.)  Even  like  as  sol- 
diers should  choose  one  among  themselves  to  be  their 
captain ;  so  did  priests  choose  one  of  themselves  to 
be  their  bishop,  for  consideration  of  his  learning, 
gravity,  and  good  living,  &c.,  and  also  for  to  avoid 
schisms  among  themselves  by  them,  that  some  might 
not  draw  people  one  way,  and  others  another  way,  if 
they  lacked  one  Head  among  them."  With  respect  to 
the  other  answers,  which  are  from  the  Bishops  of 
Eochester  (Heath)  and  Carlisle,  (Aldrich,)  and  Drs. 
Day,  Oglethorp,  Symmons,  Tresham,  and  Coren,  it  is 
difficult  to  judge  what  the  views  of  the  writers  would 
have  been  on  the  point  we  are  now  considering. 

All  the  leading  divines,  therefore,  whose  testimonies 
we  have  just  quoted,  were  of  opinion  that  bishops  and 
priests  were,  properly  and  strictly  speaking,  of  the 
same  order ^  though  differing  in  degree. 


28  THE   DOCTKIXE,  ETC. 

Nay,  more ;  we  find  by  the  answers  to  the  next 
question,  that,  even  at  that  time,  some  were  prepared 
to  t^ke  the  next  step,  and  grant  to  presbyters,  under 
some  circumstances,  the  power  to  ordain  presbyters ; 
and  that  most  of  them  replied  uncertainly  to  the  ques- 
tion. The  question  was  this:  "Whether  a  bishop 
hath  authority  to  make  a  priest  by  the  Scripture  or 
no  ?  And  whether  any  other  hut  only  a  bishop  can  maJce 
a  priestV  The  reply  of  Cranmer,  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  goes  much  beyond  what  we  should  wish 
to  plead  for,  and  is  as  follows :  "A  bishop  may  make 
a  priest  by  the  Scripture,  and  so  may  princes  and 
governors  also,  and  that  by  the  authority  of  God  com- 
mitted to  them,  and  the  people  also  by  their  election : 
for  as  we  read  that  bishops  have  done  it,  so  Christian 
emperors  and  princes  usually  have  done  it ;  and  the 
people,  before  Christian  princes  were,  commonly  did 
elect  their  bishops  and  priests."  The  answers  given 
by  the  rest  to  the  latter  part  of  the  question  were  to 
the  following  effect.  Dr.  Cox  (made  in  1559  Bishop 
of  Ely)  and  Dr.  Tresham  openly  admit,  that,  in  a  case 
of  necessity,  others  may  ordain  besides  bishops.  The 
Archbishop  of  York  says,  "  That  any  other  than 
bishops  or  priests  may  make  a  priest,  we  neither  find 
in  Scripture  nor  out  of  Scripture  ;"  clearly  implying 
that  priests  may  make  a  priest.  The  Bishops  of 
Rochester  and  Carlisle,  the  Bishop  elect  of  West- 
minster, and  Drs.  Redmayn,  Sj'mmons,  Eobertson, 
Leighton,  Curren,  Edgeworth,  and  Oglethorp,  reply 
only,  that  they  have  never  read  that  others  besides 
bishops  assumed  the  power  of  ordaining.  The  Bishop 
of  London  and  Dr.  Day  give  no  reply  to  this  part  of 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  29 

the  question.  So  that  not  one  ventures  to  determine 
definitively  that  the  power  of  ordination  belongs  ex- 
clusively to  bishops. 

Such  was  the  doctrine  of  the  leading  divines  of  our 
Church  at  this  period  on  the  subject.  We  may  there- 
fore safely  leave  it  to  the  reader  to  determine,  whether, 
when  in  1549  they  put  forth  the  Ordinal,  with  a  Pre- 
face in  which  they  speak  of  the  ^' three  orders"  of  the 
Christian  ministry,  they  meant  to  assert,  that  the 
Episcopal  and  Priestly  orders  were  so  completely  two 
distinct  orders,  that  the  special  duties  for  the  perform- 
ance of  which  bishops  had  been  set  apart  could  under 
no  circumstances  be  performed  by  priests ;  and  were 
not  rather  using  the  word  "order"  in  a  large  and 
general  sense  ;  especially  when  we  find  that  the  Ser- 
vices never  apply  the  word  order  or  ordering  to  the 
making  of  bishops,  but  only  in  the  case  of  deacons 
and  priests,  and  speak  of  the  consecration  of  bishops ; 
and  that  most  of  our  early  divines,  as,  for  instance, 
the  most  distinguished  among  the  earliest  defenders 
of  our  Church  against  the  Puritans,  Archbishop 
Whitgifb,  held  (as  we  shall  show  presently)  that 
bishops  and  priests  are,  strictly  speaking,  of  the 
same  order.* 


*  The  Bishop  of  Exeter  admits  that  the  Schoolmen  Peter  Lombard  and  others 
did  hold  Bishops  and  Priests  to  be  of  the  same  order  ^h\xi  it  was  that  they  might 
magnify  the  sacraments,  and  he  quotes  St.  Thomas  as  follows  :  "  Order  may  be 
taken  in  two  ways— in  one  as  it  la  a  sacrament ;  and  then,  as  has  been  said  be- 
fore, all  order  is  ordained  ad  EucharisticR  Sacrmnentivm;  wherefore,  since 
the  bishop  has  here  no  superior  power  to  the  priest's,  quantum  ad  hoc^  Episco- 
pate is  not  an  Order.  But  Order  may  be  considered  in  another  way,  that  is,  as 
it  is  a  certain  office,  in  respect  to  certain  sacred  acts ;  and  so,  as  the  bishop  has 
a  power  in  hierarchical  acts,  in  respect  to  the  mystical  Body  [the  Church]  supe- 
rior to  the  priest,  the  Episcopate  will  be  an  Order :  and  it  is  in  this  way  that  Dl- 


30  THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

Let  us  proceed  to  the  divines  of  Queen  Elizabeth's 
reign,  when  our  Formularies  were  finally  constituted 
and  established  as  (with  a  few  exceptions)  they  now 
stand. 

Unfortunately,  the  question  now  at  issue  was  not 
so  brought  into  controversy  at  that  period  as  to  ena- 
ble us  to  find  many  direct  testimonies  upon  the  sub- 
ject ;  for  no  one  but  a  professed  Eomanist  dreamed  of 
throwing  a  doubt  upon  the  validity  of  the  Orders  of 
the  divines  of  the  Foreign  Non-Episcopal  Churches. 
We  are  therefore  thrown  upon  their  incidental  notices 
of  the  matter.  But  even  where  the  witness  is  not  di- 
rect, it  is  sufiiciently  plain  to  indicate  the  doctrine 
held.  And,  in  fact,  the  ground  then  taken  on  this 
subject  by  our  leading  divines  was  much  lower  than 
what  the  lowest  of  the  (so-called)  Low  Churchmen  of 
modem  times  have  ordinarily  maintained ;  for  they 
expressly  defend  the  position,  that  the  form  of  church 
government  adopted  is  a  matter  of  indifference,  left  to 
the  free  choice  of  each  Church  for  itself. 

We  give  the  precedence,  as  the  order  of  time  de- 
mands, to  the  learned  Bishop  of  Exeter,  Dr.  Alley, 
who  in  his  Praelections  upon  1  Peter,  read  publicly  in 
St.  Paul's,  in  1560,  says : 

"  What  difference  is  between  a  bishop  and  a  priest,  S.  Hierome, 
writing  ad  Titum,  doth  declare,  whose  words  be  these,  '  Idem  est  er- 


onysius,  and  even  the  Master  himself  [Iv.  Diat,  24,  s.  i.  m.  iii.]  speaks  of  it  as  an 
Order."  "  And  here,"  says  Mr.  Goode,  "  is  just  the  'very  species  of  language  to 
which  I  referred  as  held,  hy  some  of  the  Scholastic  divines;  attributing  the 
superiority  of  the  Bishop^  not  to  his  having  superior  powers  so  far  as  liis  or- 
ders icere  concerned,  hut  only  so  far  as  concerned  the  office  bestowed  upon 
him  ;  that  is,  the  official  duties  he  had  to  perform." 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  ;/  tv        O^  3i^  - 

go  presbyter,  qui  episcopus,'  &c. ;  a  priest,  tlierefore,  is\tlie  same  that 
a  bisliop  is,  &c." 

And  liaving  given  Jerome's  words  in  fall,  lie  adds : 

*'  These  words  are  alleged,  that  it  may  appear  priests  among  the 
elders  to  have  been  even  the  same  that  bishops  were.  But  it  grew  by 
little  and  little  that  the  whole  charge  and  cure  should  be  appointed  to 
one  bishop  within  his  precinct,  that  the  seeds  of  dissension  might  ut- 
terly be  rooted  out.'*  (Alley's  Poor  3farCs  Library^  2d  ed.  1571, 
tom.  i.  fol.  95,  96.) 

It  could  hardly  be  doubted,  then,  bj  one  who  held 
this,  that  if  the  circumstances  of  the  Church  required 
it^  Presbyterian  ordination  would  be  valid 

About  the  same  period,  namely,  in  1563,  we  have 
a  much  stronger  testimony  from  Dr.  Pilkington,  then 
Bishop  of  Durham : 

"Yet  remains  one  doubt  unanswered  in  these  few  words,  when  he 
says,  that  '  the  government  of  the  Church  was  committed  to  bishops,' 
as  though  they  had  received  a  larger  and  higher  commission  from 
God  of  doctrine  and  discipline  than  other  lower  priests  or  ministers 
have,  and  thereby  might  challenge  a  greater  prerogative.  But  this 
is  to  be  understood,  that  the  privileges  and  superiorities^  which  bishops 
have  above  other  ministers^  are  rather  granted  by  men  for  maintaining 
of  better  order  and  quietness  in  commotiivealths^  than  commanded  by 
God  in  His  word.  Ministers  have  better  knowledge  and  utterance 
some  than  other,  but  their  ministry  is  of  equal  dignity.  God's  com- 
mission and  commandment  is  like  and  indifferent  to  all,  priest,  bishop, 
?.rchbishop,  prelate,  by  what  name  soever  he  be  called.  ...  St. 
Paul  calls  the  elders  of  Ephesus  together,  and  says,  '  the  Holy  Ghost 
made  them  bishops  to  rule  the  Church  of  God.'  (Acts  20.)  He  writes 
also  to  the  bishops  of  Philippos,  meaning  the  ministers.  .  .  .  St^ 
Jerome,  in  his  commentary  on  the  first  chapter  Ad.  Tit..,  says  that  'a 
bishop  and  a  priest  is  all  one.'  ...  A  bishop  is  a  name  of  office, 
labor,  and  pains."  {Confut.  of  an  Addition.  Worlcs.^  ed.  Park  Soc. 
pp.  493,  494.) 


32  THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

Both  these  were  among  the  Bishops  who  settled  our 
Articles,  on  the  accession  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 

Our  next  witness  shall  be  Bishop  Jewel,  of  whose 
standing  in  our  Church  it  is  unnecessary  to  add  a 
word.  On  the  parity  of  order  in  priests  and  bishops, 
he  says : 

*'  Is  it  so  horrible  a  oeresy,  as  he  [Harding]  maketh  it,  to  say,  that 
by  the  Scriptures  of  God  a  bishop  and  a  priest  are  all  one  ?  or  know- 
eth  he  how  far,  and  unto  whom,  he  reacheth  the  name  of  an  heretic? 
Verily  Chrysostom  saith  :  '  Between  a  bishop  and  a  priest  in  a  man- 
ner there  is  no  difference.'  (In  1  Tim.  hom.  11.)  S.  Hierome  saith. 
.  .  .  '  The  apostle  plainly  teacheth  us,  that  priests  and  bishops  be 
all  one.'  (ad.  Evagr.)  S.  Augustine  saith  :  'What  is  a  bishop  but 
the  first  priest ;  that  is  to  say,  the  highest  priest  ?'  (In  Qtecest,  iV.  et 
V.  Test.  q.  101.)  So  saith  S.  Ambrose:  '  There  is  but  one  consecra- 
tion (ordinatio)  of  priest  and  bishop ;  for  both  of  them  are  priests,  but 
the  bishop  is  the  first.'  (In  1  Tim.  c.  3.)  All  these  and  other  more 
holy  Fathers,  together  with  St.  Paul  the  apostle,  for  thus  saying,  by 
M.  Harding's  advice,  must  be  holdeu  for  heretics."  (Def.  of  Apol. 
Pt.  ii.  c.  9.  div.  i.  Works^  p.  202.     See  also  Pt.  ii.  c.  iii.  div.  i.  p.  85.) 

But  there  is  a  passage  in  his  writings  still  more 
strongly  bearing  on  the  point  in  question.  Harding 
had  charged  our  Church  with  deriving  its  orders  from 
apostate  bishops,  etc.     Jewel  replies : 

"  Therefore  we  neither  have  bishops  without  church,  nor  church 
without  bishops.  Neither  doth  the  Church  of  England  this  day  de- 
pend of  them  whom  you  often  call  apostates,  as  if  our  Church  were 
no  Church  without  them.  .  ,  .  If  there  were  not  one^  neither  of 
them  nor  of  us  left  alive,  yet  would  not  therefore  the  whole  Church  of 
England  flee  to  Lovaiae,  TertuUian  saith :  *  And  we  being  laymen, 
are  we  not  priests  ?  It  is  written,  Christ  hath  made  us  both  a  king- 
dom and  priests  unto  God  his  Father.  The  authority  of  the  Church, 
and  the  honor  by  the  assembly,  or  council  of  order  sanctified  of  God, 
hath  made  a  difference  between  the  lay  and  the  clergy.  Where  as 
there  is  no  assembly  of  ecclesiastical  order,  the  priest  being  there 


THE    DOCTKIXE,  ETC.  33 

alone  (without  the  company  of  other  priests)  doth  both  minister  the 
oblation  and  also  baptize.  Yea,  and  be  there  but  three  together,  and 
though  they  be  laymen,  yet  is  there  a  church.  For  every  man  liveth 
of  his  own  faith.'"     {JDef.  of  Apol.  Pt.  ii.  c.  v.  div.  i.  p.  129.) 

It  is  needless  to  point  out  liow  much  this  passage 
implies. 

We  proceed  to  Archbishop  Whitgift. 

And  first,  as  to  the  parity  of  order  in  bishops  and 
priests,  he  speaks  thus : 

"Every  bishop  is  a  priest,  but  every  priest  hath  not  the  name  and 
title  of  a  bishop,  in  that  meaning  that  Jerome  in  this  place  [^Ad 
Uvagr.]  taketh  the  name  of  a  bishop.  .  .  .  Neither  shall  you 
find  this  word  episcopus  commonly  used  but  for  that  priest  that  is  in 
degree  over  and  above  the  rest,  notwithstanding  episcopus  be  oftentimes 
called  presbyter,  because  presbijier  is  the  more  general  name'''  {Def. 
of  Answ.  to  Adm.  1574,  fol.  p.  383.) 

"  Although  Hierome  confess,  that  by  Scripture  presbyter  and  epis- 
copus is  all  one,  (as  in  deed  they  be  quoad  ministerium,)  yet  doth  he 
acknowledge  a  superiority  of  the  bishop  before  the  minister.  .  .  . 
Therefore  no  doubt  this  is  Jerome's  mind,  that  a  bishop  in  degree  and 
dignity  is  above  the  minister,  though  he  be  one  and  the  self-same  with 
him  in  the  office  of  ministering  the  word  and  sacraments."  {lb.  pp. 
384,  385.) 

Secondly,  as  to  the  form  of  government  to  be  fol- 
lowed in  the  Church.  His  adversary  Cartwright,  like 
the  great  body  of  the  Puritans,  contended  for  the  ex- 
clusive admissibility  of  the  platform  of  church  gov- 
ernment he  advocated ;  and,  like  Archdeacon  Deni- 
son,  maintained  that  "matters  of  discipline  and  kind 
of  government  are  matters  necessary  to  salvation  and 
of  faith."     And  this  is  Whitgift's  reply : 

*'  I  confess  that  in  a  church  collected  together  in  one  place,  and  at 
liberty,  government  is  necessary  in  the  second  kind  of  necessity ;  but 


34  THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

that  any  one  kind  of  government  ia  so  necessary  that  without  it  the 
Cluirch  can  not  be  saved,  or  that  it  may  not  he  altered  into  some  other 
kind  thought  to  he  more  expedient^  I  utterly  deny,  and  the  reasons  that 
move  me  so  to  do  be  these.  The  first  is,  because  I  find  no  one  cer- 
tain and  perfect  kind  of  government  prescrihed  or  commanded  in  the 
Scriptures  to  the  Church  of  Christy  which  no  doubt  should  have  been 
done,  if  it  had  been  a  matter  necessary  unto  the  salvation  of  the 
Church.  Secondly,  because  the  essential  notes  of  the  Church  he  these 
only ;  the  true  preaching  of  the  word  of  God,  and  the  right  administra- 
tion of  the  sacraments :  for  (as  Master  Calvin  saith,  in  his  book  against 
the  Anabaptists) :  '  This  honor  is  meet  to  be  given  to  the  word  of 
God,  and  to  His  sacraments,  that  wheresoever  we  see  the  word  of 
God  truly  preached,  and  God  according  to  the  same  truly  worshipped, 
and  the  sacraments  without  superstition  administered,  there  we  may 
without  all  controversy  conclude  the  Church  of  God  to  be :'  and  a  ht- 
tle  after:  'So  much  we  must  esteem  the  word  of  God  and  His  sacra- 
ments, that  wheresoever  we  find  them  to  be,  there  we  may  certainly 
know  the  Church  of  God  to  be,  although  in  the  common  life  of  men 
many  faults  and  errors  be  found.'  The  same  is  the  opinion  of  other 
godly  and  learned  writers  and  the  judgment  of  the  Reformed  Churches^ 
as  appeareth  by  their  Confessions.  So  that  notwithstanding  govern- 
ment, or  some  kind  of  government,  may  be  a  part  of  the  Church, 
touching  the  outward  form  and  perfection  of  it,  yet  is  it  not  such  a 
part  of  the  essence  and  being,  but  that  it  may  be  the  Church  of 
Clirist  without  this  or  that  kind  of  government,  and  therefore  the 
kind  of  government  of  the  Church  is  not  necessary  unto  salvation.*' 
{Ih,  p.  81.) 

'•'•  I  deny  that  the  Scriptures  do  ,  .  ,  set  down  any  one  certain  form 
and  kind  of  government  of  the  Church  to  he  perpetual  for  all  times^  per- 
sons^ and  places  without  alteration^    {Ih.  p.  84.) 

And  speaking  of  the  platform  of  cliurcli  govern- 
ment contended  for  by  Cartwriglit,  he  says : 

"  Yet  would  I  not  have  any  man  to  think  that  -I  condemn  any 
churches  where  this  government  is  lawfully  and  without  danger  received; 
only  I  have  regard  to  whole  kingdoms,  especially  this  realm,  where  it 
can  not  but  be  dangerous."     {Ih.  p.  658.) 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  35 

In  Tract  17;  c.  iv.  lie  undertakes  expressly  to  prove, 
"  That  there  is  no  one  certain  kind  of  government  in 
the  Church  which  must  of  necessity  be  perpetually 
observed."     {lb,  p.  658.)     And  he  remarks  in  it : 

"  It  is  plain  that  any  one  certain  form  or  kind  of  external  govern- 
ment perpetually  to  be  observed,  is  no  where  in  the  Scripture  prescribed 
to  the  Church;  but  the  charge  thereof  is  left  to  the  Christian  magis- 
trate, so  that  nothing  be  done  contrary  to  the  word  of  God."  (lb.  p. 
659.) 

The  equality  of  bishops  and  presbyters  jure  divino^ 
was  also  expressly  maintained  at  this  period  by  the 
learned  Dr.  W.  Whitaker,  Eeg.  Prof,  of  Div.  at  Cam- 
bridge. Among  other  remarks  on  the  subject,  he 
says,  referring  to  Jerome's  words  in  his  Commentary 
on  Titus^  c.  i. ; 

"Si  Episcopi  consueiudine non  dispositione Dominica  presby teris ma- 
jores  sunt,  turn  humano  non  divino  jure  totum  hoc  discrimen  con- 
stat." [Resp.  ad  Camp,  defens.  adv.  J.  Durceum.  lib.  vi.  Op.  torn.  i. 
p.  149.) 

And  to  the  -reference  of  his  opponent  to  Jerome's 
Epistle  to  Evagrius,  showing  that  the  power  of  ordi- 
nation had  been  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  bishop,  he 
replies : 

''  Quod  autem  affers  ex  eadem  Epistola,  ad  humanam  non  divinam 
constitutionem  pertinet.  Etsi  enim  ortu  suo  iidera  erant  ambo,  postea 
tamen  (inquit  Hieronymus)  uniis  electus  est^  qui  cceteris  prceponeretar ; 
atque  inde  natum  est  illud  episcopi  ac  presby teri  discrimen."    (Ibid.) 

Of  course,  then,  that  which  owed  its  origin  to  hu- 
man appointment  might,  by  the  same  authority,  in 
any  individual  church,  be  laid  aside. 
2^ 


36  THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

Our  next  witness  shall  be  Hooker,  in  himself  a 
host.  And  when  our  readers  have  perused  the  ex- 
tracts we  are  about  to  give  from  his  writings,  thej  will 
be  able  to  judge  of  the  honesty  with  which  his  name 
has  been  used  in  favor  of  the  exclusive  doctrine  of 
the  Tractarians,  both  in  their  Catenas  and  in  their  re- 
cent onslaught  on  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 

"Now  whereas  hereupon  (he  observes)  some  do  infer  that  no  ordi- 
nation can  stand,  but  only  such  as  is  made  by  bishops  which  have 
had  their  ordination  likewise  by  other  bishops  before  them,  till  we 
come  to  the  very  Apostles  of  Christ  themselves ;  in  which  respect  it 
was  demanded  of  Beza  at  Poissie,  *  By  what  authority  he  could  ad- 
minister the  holy  sacraments,  &c.'  [Our  readers  will  observe  the  in- 
stance ciiedj  the  very  case  now  in  question  between  the  Archbishop 
and  his  assailants.]  ...  To  this  we  answer,  that  there  may  he 
somttimes  very  just  and  sufficient  reason  to  allow  ordination  made 
WITHOUT  A  BISHOP.  The  whole  Church  visible  being  the  true  original 
subject  of  all  power,  it  hath  not  ordinarily  allowed  any  other  than 
bishops  alone  to  ordain  ;  howbeit,  as  the  ordinary  course  is  ordinarily 
in  all  things  to  be  observed,  so  it  may  be,  in  some  cases,  not  unne- 
cessary that  we  decline  from  the  ordinary  ways.  Men  may  be  extra- 
ordinarily, yet  allowably,  two  ways  admitted  unto  spiritual  f mictions  in 
the  Church.  One  is,  when  God  Himself  doth  of  Himself  raise  up  any. 
.  .  .  Another  .  .  .  when  the  exigence  of  necessity  doth  con- 
strain to  leave  the  usual  ways  of  the  Church,  which  otherwise  we 
would  willingly  keep."    {Eccl.  Pol.  vii.  14.     See  also  iii.  11.) 

Here  is  a  direct  assertion  of  the  validity  of  such 
orders  as  those  of  Beza. 

And  in  a  former  passage  of  the  same  book,  he  dis- 
tinctly admits  the  power  of  the  Church  at  large  to 
take  away  the  Episcopal  form  of  government  from  the 
Church,  and  says : 

'•''Lei  them  [that  is,  hishops']  continually  hear  in  mind,  that  it  is  rather 
the  force  of  custom^  wherthythe  Churchy  having  so  lomj  ftnind  it  good  to 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  37 

continue  under  the  regiment  of  her  virtuous  hishojjs^  doth  still  uphold, 
maintain^  and  honor  them  in  that  respect^  than  that  any  such  true  and 
heavenly  law  can  he  showed  by  the  evidence  whereof  it  may  of  a  truth 
appear,  that  the  Lord  himself  hath  appointed  presbyters  forever  to  be 
under  the  regiment  of  bishops  f  adding,  that  '''■their  authority'^''  is  "  a 
sword  ivhich  the  Church  hath  power  to  take  from  them,''''  {lb.  vii.  5. 
See  also  i.  14  and  iii.  10.) 

And,  therefore,  tliough  lie  admits  tlie  office  and 
superiority  of  bishops  to  be  of  Apostolical  institution 
and  takes  much  higher  ground  on  the  subject  than 
most  of  his  contemporaries,  yet  all  that  he  expressly 
undertakes  to  prove  on  the  subject  is,  that  such  supe- 
riority is  "a  ihing  alloivable^  lawful^  and  goodJ''  {lb, 
vii.  3.) 

We  will  take  the  testimony  of  Hadrian  Saravia ; 
of  whom  Mr.  Keble  writes  thus : 

"  Saravia  is  a  distinct  and  independent  testimony  to  the  doctrine 

of  exclusive  [the  Italics  are  ours]  divine  right  in  bishops 

And  since  Saravia  was  afterwards  in  familiar  intercourse  with  Hooker, 
and  his  confidential  adviser  when  writing  on  nearly  the  same  subjects, 
we  may  with  reason  use  the  recorded  opinions  of  the  one  for  inter 
preting  Avhat  might  seem  otherwise  ambiguous  in  the  other."  {Fref. 
to  Hooker,  p.  Ixvii.) 

Now  certainly  Hadrian  Saravia  took  very  high 
ground  in  his  defense  of  Episcopacy,  maintaining  that 
the  Episcopal  authority  was  of  Divine  institution  and 
Apostolical  tradition,  and  was  taught  as  well  by  the 
word  of  God  as  the  universal  consent  of  all  Churches;^ 
yet  in  the  same  work  he  speaks  thus : 

*  Episcopalem  authoritatem  Divinae  institutionis  et  Apostolicse  traditionis  esse 
defendo,  et  id  tarn  Verbo  Dei  quam  universali  omnium  Ecclesiarum  consensu  doceri. 
{Defens.  Tract,  de  div.  3£iiiisir.  Ev.  gradihus:  In  Epist.  dedicat.    Op.  1611.) 


38  THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

**  In  our  fathers'  memory  Lutlier,  Bucer,  (Ecolampadius,  and  others, 
had  no  other  caUing  than  that  which  they  had  received  in  the  Church 
of  Rome ;  and  when  it  happened  to  them  to  be  called  before  Cicsar, 
no  question  respecting  their  calling  could  ever  be  justly  raised;  and 
if  it  had  been,  they  had  an  answer  ready  more  fit  in  my  judgment 
than  that  which  was  made  at  the  Conference  at  Poissy.  ,  .  .  For 
although  all  who  had  assembled  there  before  the  king  had  not  the 
same  kind  of  ordination,  and  some  were  ordained  by  bishops  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  others  by  the  Reformed  Churches^  none  of  thein 
ought  to  have  been  ashamed  of  his  ordination.  They  might,  so  far  as 
I  can  see,  without  any  danger,  have  professed  that  they  had  been 
ordained  and  called,  some  by  bishops  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  others 
by  orthodox  presbyters^  in  the  order  received  in  the  Churches  of  Christ, 
after  an  examination  of  their  morals  and  doctrine,  and  with  the  au- 
thority of  the  magistrate  and  consent  of  the  people,  with  the  impo- 
sition of  hands  and  prayer.  Although  I  am  of  opinion  that  ordina- 
tions of  ministers  of  the  Church  properly  belong  to  bishops,  yet 
necessity  causes  that  when  they  are  wanting  and  can  not  be  had, 
orthodox  presbyters  can  in  case  of  necessity  ordain  a  presbyter  ;  which 
thing,  although  it  is  not  in  accordance  with  the  order  received  from 
the  times  of  the  Apostles,  yet  is  excused  by  the  necessity  of  the  case, 
which  causes  that  in  such  a  state  of  things  a  presbyter  may  be  a  bishop. 
Moreover,  although  the  act  is  out  of  the  usual  order,  the  calling  is 
not  to  be  considered  extraordinary."  [And  then,  having  remarked 
that  no  one  ought  to  receive  orders  from  an  heretical  bishop,  and 
that  the  Romish  bishops  were  all  heretics,  he  adds  :]  *'  This  also  is 
true,  that  in  such  a  state  of  confusion  in  the  Church,  when  all  the 
bishops  fall  away  from  the  true  worship  of  God  unto  idolatry,  without 
any  violation  of  the  government  of  the  Church,  the  whole  authority 
of  the  Episcopal  ecclesiastical  government  is  devolved  upon  the  pious 
and  orthodox  presbyters,  so  that  a  presbyter  clearly  may  ordain  pres- 
byters. .  .  .  There  is  one  God,  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  one  Church, 
one  Baptism,  one  Ministry.  The  difference  there  is  between  presby- 
ters and  pastors  of  the  Church  of  Christ  consists  in  the  authority  of 
Ecclesiastical  government.  And  this  is  not  violated,  when  the  higher 
orders  being  in  any  way  removed,  those  who  are  of  the  lowest  grade 
alone  remain,  with  whom,  consequently,  the  whole  power  of  the  keys 
of  the  Church  then  resides.  .  .  .  But  where  all  the  bishops  are 
become  impious  heretics,  the  orthodox  presbyters  are  freed  from  their 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  39 

jurisdiction,  and  ought  to  vindicate  to  themselves  the  power  of  the 
keys  which  they  have  received  in  their  ordination.  ...  I  cer- 
tainly know  not  by  what  necessity  Master  Beza  should  have  been 
compelled  to  resort  to  an  extraordinary  calling.  For  I  do  not  think 
that  either  he^  or  Nicholas  Galasius^  or  any  other  that  may  have  been 
then  present^  not  ordained  by  JRomish  bishops^  took  upon  themselves 
the  ministry  of  the  Word  without  a  legitimate  calling  received  in  the 
Churches  of  Christ.''''* 

JSTor  did  lie  hold  that  the  Foreign  Non-Episcopal 
Churches  were  bound  to  seek  Episcopacy  from  some 
Eeformed  Episcopal  Church,  for  he  says :  "  If  they 
call  in  the  aid  of  our  men,  and  wish  to  use  their  advice, 
they  can  ;  but  if  they  do  not,  they  ought  not  to  arro- 
gate to  themselves  any  authority  over  them  and  their 
churches,  but  to  rejoice,  and  congratulate  them  upon 
-their  conversion,  and  offer  them  communion,  {offerre 
societatem,y  \ 

So  that  here  again  we  have  a  direct  testimony  in 
favor  of  the  validity  of  the  ordination  of  the  Foreign 
Non-Episcopal  Churches. 

Let  us  take  next  the  testimony  of  Dr.  John  Bridges, 
then  (1587)  Dean  of  Salisbury,  afterwards  Bishop  of 
Oxford.  ETe,  as  we  shall  see,  agrees  with  Archbishop 
Whitgift,  that  the  form  of  church  government  is  a 
matter  left  to  the  discretion  of  each  church.  lie 
speaks  of  it,  indeed,  in  language  which  we  can  not 
reconcile  with  the  respect  we  feel  due  to  the  primitive 
form  of  church  government;  but  yet  he  was  one  of 
the  most  able  and  distinguished  prelates  of  that  period. 


*  Defens.  Tract,  de  div.  Ministr.  Ev.  gradibus,  &c.  ch.  ii.  pp. 
late  fi'ora  the  Latin, 
t  lb.  p.  18. 


40  THE  DOCTKINE,   ETC. 

Witli  respect  to  the  question  of  order  in  tlie  case  of 
bishops  and  priests,  he  expressly  maintains  that  bishops 
are  superiors,  "  not  in  the  office  of  their  order ^  yet  in  the 
office  of  their  dignity ;"  {Defense  of  the  Governrrient 
Estahlished  in  the  Church  of  England^  1587,  4to,  p.  287 ;) 
and  he  speaks  of  the  Episcopal  state  as  "a  high  call- 
ing, not  so  much  of  superior  dignity,  as  of  superior 
charge  in  governing  of  God's  Church."     (lb.  p.  288.) 

And  on  the  subject  of  the  Episcopal  government 
of  the  Cliurch — opposing  the  notion  of  the  Puritans, 
against  whom  he  was  writing,  that  one  certain  form 
only  was  allowable — ^he  writes  thus : 

"  If  now,  on  the  other  side,  this  be  not  a  matter  of  necessity,  but 
such  as  may  be  varied,  being  but  a  fonn  and  manner  of  Ecclesiastical 
government,  as  the  observation  of  this  feast  and  these  fasts  were  of 
accustomed  order,  not  of  necessity ;  then,  so  long  as  it  is  used  in 
moderate  sort,  without  tyranny  or  pride,  nor  any  thing  contrary  to 
the  proportion  of  faith  and  godliness  of  life  necessarily  maintained 
thereby,  (for  otherwise,  if  those  fasts  or  this  feast  had  been  used  to 
be  kept  superstitiously,  it  had  been  so  far  forth  to  be  condemned,) 
there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  break  the  bond  of  peace,  and  make 
such  trouble  in  the  Church  of  God,  to  reject  the  government  that  in 
the  nature  thereof  is  as  much  indifferent  as  the  solemnizing  this  or  that 
day  the  memorial  of  tJie  Lord^s  resitrrectlon.  And  yet  we  celebrate 
the  same  on  the  Sunday  only,  as  those  bishops  of  Rome  at  that  time 
did.  "Which  I  hope  we  do  without  all  offense,  though  we  have  no 
precept  in  Scripture  for  it.  And  therefore,  as  Polycarpus  and  Ani- 
cetus,  differing  in  that  point,  notwithstanding  did  not  violate  the  peace 
and  unity  of  the  Church,  so,  according  to  Irenieus's  rule,  while  no 
such  excessive  superiority  is  maintained  of  us,  as  the  Pope  since  that 
time  hath  usurped,  but  such  as  we  find  practised  in  the  primitive 
Church  and  in  the  very  apostles'  age,  we  ought  neither  to  condemn^  nor 
speak,  nor  think  evil  of  other  good  Churches  that  use  another  Ecclesi- 
astical government  than  we  do  ;  neither  ought  they  to  do  the  like  of 
ours.     Not  that  every  person  in  one  and  the  same  Church  should  use 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  41 

this  liberty  of  difference,  without  controhnent  and  restraint  of  the 
superior  in  that  Church  wherein  he  liveth.  For,  though  it  were  hiwful 
for  one  Church  to  differ  from  another,  being  not  so  tied  to  uniformity, 
as  to  unity;  yet  is  it  not  meet  for  one  Church  to  differ  from  itself; 
but  to  be  both  in  unity,  and  be  ruled  also  by  uniformity.  Especially 
where  law  binds  them  to  obedience."     (76.  pp.  319,  320.) 

Anotlier  of  the  most  able  prelates  of  our  Churcli,  and 
defender  of  it  against  the  Puritans,  was  Dr.  Thomas 
Cooper,  Bishop,  first  of  Lincoln,  and  afterwards  of 
Winchester.  In  the  year  1589,  he  published  an 
Admojiition  to  the  People  of  England^  in  answer  to  the 
attacks  of  the  Puritan  party.  And  thus  he  defends 
in  this  work  the  form  of  church  government  estab- 
lished in  this  country : 

"  As  touching  the  government  of  the  Church  of  England,  now  de- 
fended by  the  bishop  •;,  tliis  I  say  :  When  God  restored  the  doctrine 
of  the  Gospel  more  sincerely  and  more  abundantly  than  ever  before, 
under  that  good  young  prince.  King  Edward  YI.  ...  by  con- 
sent of  all  the  States  of  this  land,  this  manner  of  government  that 
now  is  used  was  by  law  confirmed  as  good  and  godly.  ...  As 
for  this  question  of  churcli  government,  I  mean  not  at  this  time  to 
stand  much  on  it.  .  .  .  Only  this  I  desire^  that  they  will  lay 
down  out  of  the  loord  of  God  some  just  proofs,  and  a  direct  com 
mandment,  that  there  should  he  in  all  ages  and  states  of  the  Church 
of  Christ  one  only  form  of  outward  govermnent.''^  (Ed.  Lond. 
1847,  pp.  61-63.) 

So  that,  far  from  maintain'ng  the  necessity  of  the 
Episcopal  form  of  church  government,  he,  on  the  con- 
trary, challenges  his  opponents  to  prove  that  any 
particular  form  of  church  government  is  necessary. 
And  he  adds : 

"  Surely,  as  grave  learned  men  as  most  that  have  written  in  this 
time     ....     do  make  good  proof  of   this  proposition.     Tha^ 


42  THE   DOCTPJNE,  ETC. 

one  form  of  church  government  is  not  necessary  in  all  times  and 
places  of  the  Church,  and  that  their  Senate  or  Seguiorie  is  not  con- 
venient under  a  Christian  magistrate.'' 

And  after  pointing  out  the  different  forms  of 
cliurch  government  that  prevailed  in  tlie  Foreign 
Non-Episcopal  Ctmrclaes,  lie  says : 

"  All  those  churches  in  which  the  Gospel  in  these  days,  after  great 
darkness,  was  first  renewed,  and  the  learned  men  whom  God  sent  to 
instruct  them,  I  doubt  not  but  have  been  directed  hy  the  Spirit  of 
God  to  retain  this  liberty^  that  in  external  government  and  other 
outward  orders,  they  might  choose  such  as  they  thought  in  wisdom 
and  godliness  to  be  most  convenient  for  the  state  of  their  country 
and  disposition  of  the  people.  Why^  then^  should  this  liberty  that 
other  coimtries  have  used  under  any  color  be  wrested  from  us  .^"  {lb. 
p.  66.) 

"  The  reason  that  moveth  us  not  to  like  of  this  platform  of  gov- 
ernment is,  that  when  we,  on  the  one  part,  consider  the  things  that 
are  required  to  be  redressed,  and  on  the  other  the  state  of  our  coun- 
try, people,  and  common  weal,  we  see  evidently,  that  to  plant  those 
things  in  this  Church  will  draw  with  it  so  many  and  so  great  altera- 
tions of  the  state  of  government  and  of  the  laws,  as  the  attempting 
thereof  might  bring  rather  the  overthrow  of  the  Gospel  among  us, 
than  the  end  that  is  desired."    {lb.  p.. 67.) 

This  of  course  disposes  of  the  doctrine  of  our  op- 
ponents, root  and  branch. 

We  will  add  but  one  more  authority  for  the  reign 
of  Queen  Elizabeth.  We  began  with  the  Bishop  of 
Exeter;  we  will  end  with  one  of  whose  high  au- 
thority as  the  proper  expounder  of  the  doctrine  of 
our  Church  we  have  lately  heard  much — the  Dean 
of  the  Arches.  We  beg  the  attention  of  our  oppo- 
nents to  the  following  statement  of  the  very  learned 
and  able  Dean  of  the  Arches  in  1584,  Dr.  Richard 
Cosin.     It  occurs  in  his  answer,  "  jDublished  by  au- 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  43 

thority,"  to  a  Puritan  work,  entitled  An  Abstract  on 
Certain  Ads  of  Parliament.  He  is  opposing  the  no- 
tion that  "  a  set  form"  of  "  external  policy  of  disci- 
pline and  ceremonies"  is  "  set  down  in  Scripture," 
and  he  says : 

"Are  all  the  churches  of  Denmark,  Sweveland,  Poland,  Germany, 
Rhetia,  Vallis,  Tellina,  the  nine  cantons  of  Switzerland  reformed, 
with  their  confederates  of  Geneva,  of  France,  of  the  Low  Countries, 
and  of  Scotland,  in  all  points,  either  of  substance  or  of  circum- 
stance, disciplinated  alike  ?  Nay,  they  neither  are,  can  be,  nor  yet 
need  so  to  be ;  seeing  it  can  not  be  proved^  that  any  set  and  exact 
particular  form  thereof  is  recommended  unto  us  by  the  word  of  God.''^ 
{Answer  to  an  Abstract,  etc.,  1584,  4to.  p.  58.) 

Such  are  the  statements  of  some  of  the  best  au- 
thorities for  the  doctrine  of  our  Church  in  the  time 
of  Queen  Elizabeth,  in  whose  reign  our  Articles  and 
Formularies  were  settled  (with  slight  exceptions)  in 
their  present  form.  And  we  now  challenge  the  Arch- 
bishop's assailants  to  produce  their  authorities  for  the 
same  period.  Can  they  bring  even  one  for  their  doc- 
trine ?  We  do  not  believe  it.  And  upon  the  testi- 
monies of  this  period,  be  it  remembered,  must  rest 
the  proof  of  the  original  and  genuine  doctrine  of  our 
Eeformed  Protestant  Church.  That  there  was  a  de- 
clension from  that  doctrine  afterwards,  in  many  of 
our  divines,  is  freely  confessed.  But  that  proves 
nothing.  It  can  neither  alter  nor  add  to  the  doctrine 
of  our  Church,  as  laid  down  in  her  Formularies 
drawn  up  in  the  time  of  the  divines  from  whom  we 
have  been  quoting.  And  we  shall  give  presently  a 
series  of  testimonies,  from  their  times  to  our  own, 
showing  that  their  view  has,  in  the  main,  been  held 


44  THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

by  a  large  proportion  of  our  greatest  divines  ever 
since  ;  and  ftxrtlier,  that  even  the  highest  among  our 
eminent  High  Church,  divines  (as  they  are  called) 
have  never  advocated  the  extreme  notions  main- 
tained by  the  Tractarians,  and  were  not,  therefore, 
High  Churchmen.'^ 

The  ground  taken  by  our  early  divines,  as  shown 
by  the  testimonies  above  given,  was  that  the  Episco- 
pal form  of  church  government  is  the  best  and  the 
most  Scriptural,  and  comes  recommended  to  us  by  the 
practice  of  the  Churcli  even  from  the  times  of  the 
Apostles,  but  has  not  been  authoritatively  laid  down 
by  Christ  or  his  Apostles  as  of  indispensable  obliga- 
tion, and  therefore  is  not  binding  upon  all  Churches. 

They  did  not  oppose  the  early  Nonconformists  on 
the  ground  of  the  absolute  necessity  of  the  Episco- 
pal form  of  Church  government,  still  less  of  a  suc- 
cession of  bishops  consecrated  by  bishops,  to  consti- 
tute a  Church.  They  left  such  notions  to  the  Eo- 
manists.  But  they  found  fault  with  them,  as  throw- 
ing a  well-constituted  Church  into  confusion  and  dis- 
order, as  causing  needless  schisms  and  divisions,  and 
as  sinfully  disobeying  the  ordinances  of  the  Supreme 
Power  in  the  State,  which  had  established  a  Christ- 
ian Church  agreeable  to  Holy  Scripture  and  Apos- 
tolic practice.  The  high-flown  claims  of  our  Tracta- 
rian  High  Churchmen  to  the  exclusive  admissihility  of 
one  system  of  Church  government,  were  the  weapons, 

*  The  only  authorities  quoted  by  the  Bishop  of  Exeter  as  holding  the  doctrine 
of  exclusive  validity  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  are  Hooker  and  Bishop  Bilson. 
The  true  testimony  of  Hooker  is  given  above,  and  it  can  be  shown  from  Bilson 
that  this  particular  question  was  not  before  his  mind  at  all.  He  says  that  bishops 
only  can  ordain  in  the  Churcli  of  England.    Elizabeth  died  in  1603. 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  45 

not  of  tlie  divines  of  our  Church,  but  of  their  oppo- 
nents, the  Puritans.  The  Grenevan  platform  of 
Church  government  was  with  the  Puritans  that 
which  alone  was  conformable  to  the  word  of  God. 
Every  other,  but  especially  the  Prelatical,  was  to  be 
escliewed  as  an  abomination.  And,  as  to  the  power 
of  the  civil  ruler  in  religious  matters,  they  spoke  of 
it — much  as  the  Tractarians  now  speak  of  it ;  except 
that  under  Elizabeth  they  muttered  in  the  dark  what 
under  Victoria  is  proclaimed  in  the  market-place."^ 
Thus  it  is  that  extremes  meet. 

III.  The  PKACTiCE  OF  OUR  Church  for  many 
years  after  the  Keformation  entirely  refutes  the  no- 
tion that  she  holds  the  ordinations  of  the  Scotch  and 
Foreign  Non-Episcopal  Churches  to  be  invalid  ;  for, 
until  the  period  of  the  Restoralion^  ministers  of  those 
Churches  were  admitted  to  the  cure  of  souls  in  our 
Church  without  any  fresh  ordination. 

In  1582  (April  6)  a  license  was  granted  by  the 
Vicar-General  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
(Grindal)  to  a  minister  of  the  name  of  John  Morri- 
son, who  had  only  Scotch  orders,  in  the  following 
terms : 


*  Hence  we  may  remark,  by  the  way,  that  when  we  are  considering  the  events 
of  that  period,  and  the  apparent  (and  to  some  extent  real)  absence  of  those  prin- 
ciples of  toleration  now  so  hajipily  established  among  us,  it  must  not  be  forgotten, 
hat  the  object  of  the  early  Nonconformists  was,  not  the  mere  toleration  of  their 
own  system,  but  the  utter  subversion  of  the  system  of  church  government  then 
established  by  the  consent  of  the  sovereign,  the  clergy,  and  the  people,  and  the 
substitution  of  their  own  in  its  stead.  This  was  notoriously  and  confessedly  their 
aim ;  and  this  it  was  which  infused  so  much  wrath  and  bitterness  into  the  contro- 
versies of  the  period. 

[The  Nonconformists  after  the  Restoration,  such  as  Baxter  and  his  school,  did 
not  take  this  ground. — Ed.] 


46  THE   DOCTPvIXE,  ETC. 

"  Since  you,  the  aforesaid  John  Morrison,  about  five  years  past, 
in  the  town  of  Garvet,  in  the  county  of  Lothian,  of  the  kingdom  of 
Scotland,  were  admitted  and  ordained  to  sacred  orders  and  the 
holy  ministry^  by  the  imposition  of  hands,  according  to  the  laudable 
form  and  rite  of  the  Reformed  Church  of  Scotland ;  and  since  the 
congregation  of  that  county  of  Lothian  is  conformable  to  the  ortho- 
dox faith  and  sincere  religion  now  received  in  this  realm  of  England, 
and  established  by  public  authority  ;  we,  therefore,  as  much  as  lies 
in  us,  and  as  by  right  we  may,  approving  and  ratifying  the  for ni  of 
your  ordination  and  preferment  (prcefectionis)  done  in  such  manner 
aforesaid,  grant  to  you  a  license  and  faculty,  with  the  consent  and 
express  command  of  the  most  reverend  Father  in  Christ  the  Lord 
Edmund,  by  the  Divine  providence  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  to  us 
signified,  that  in  such  orders  by  you  taken  you  may,  and  have  power, 
in  any  convenient  places  in  and  throughout  the  whole  province  of 
Canterbury,  to  celebrate  divine  offices,  to  minister  the  sacra?nents,  etc., 
as  much  as  in  us  lies,  and  we  may  de  jure,  and  as  far  as  the  laws  of 
the  kingdom  do  allow,  etc."  {Strype's  Life  of  Grindal,  Bk.  2,  c.  xiii. 
p.  271 ;  or  Oxf  ed.  p.  402.) 

To  this  we  need  only  add  the  testimony  of  Bishop 
Cosin,  confessedly  (as  the  phrase  goes)  a  High  Chtuch.- 
man.  He  says,  in  an  admirable  letter  on  this  subject, 
written  from  Paris,  Feb.  7,  1650,  from  which  we 
shall  presently  give  a  large  extract : 

"  Therefore,  if  at  any  time  a  minister  so  ordained  in  these  French 
Churches  came  to  incorporate  himself  in  ours,  and  to  receive  a  pub- 
lic charge  or  cure  of  souls  among  us  in  the  Church  of  England,  (as  I 
have  known  some  of  them  to  have  so  done  of  late,  and  can  instance  in 
many  other  before  my  Xm\c,)our  bishops  did  notreordain  him  before 
they  admitted  him  to  his  charge,  as  they  must  have  done,  if  his  former 
ordination  here  in  France  had  been  void.  Nor  did  our  laws  require 

MORE  OF  HIM  THAN  TO  DECLARE  HIS  PUBLIC  CONSENT  TO  THE  RELIGION 
RECEIVED  AMONGST  US,  AND  TO  SUBSCRIBE  THE  ARTICLES  ESTABLISHED." 

(Letter  to  Mr.  Cordel,  in  Basire's  "Account  of  Bishop  Cosin,"  an- 
nexed to  his  "Funeral  Sermon;"  and  also  in  Bishop  Fleetwood's 
Judgment  of  the  Church  of  England  in  the  case  of  Lay  Baptism, 
2d  ed.    Lond.  1*712,  p.  52.) 


THE    DOCTlllNE,  ETC.  47 

And  the  same  testimony  is  borne  bv  Bishop  Fleet- 
wood, who  says  that  this  was  "  certainly  her  practice 
[that  is,  of  our  Church]  during  the  reigns  of  King 
James  and  King  Charles  I.  and  to  the  year  1661. 
We  had  many  ministers  from  Scotland,  from  France, 
and  the  Low  Countries,  who  were  ordained  by  pres- 
byters only,  and  not  bishops,  and  they  were  insti- 
tuted into  benefices  with  cure  .  .  .  and  yet  were 
never  reordained,  but  only  subscribed  the  Articles." 
{Judgm.  of  Ghurch  of  Eng.  in  case  of  Lay  Baptism^ 
1712.    8vo.    pt.  ii.     Worhs^  p.  552.) 

If  these  cases  do  not  prove,  that  at  least  our 
Church  has  never  disowned  the  validity  of  the  ordi- 
nations of  the  Scotch  and  Foreign  Non-Episcopal 
Churches,  and  that  her  practice  till  the  Eestoration 
was  to  recognize  their  validity,  nothing  would  do  so. 
For  Dr.  Cosin,  who  must  have  been  well  acquainted 
with  the  matter,  (having  filled  important  posts  in  the 
Church  since  the  year  1616,  and  been  librarian  to 
Bishop  Overal,  and  domestic  chaplain  to  Bishop 
Neale,)  speaks  of  it,  not  as  a  custom  with  some  only, 
but  as  the  practice  of  "the  bishops"  generally,  and 
sanctioned  by  the  law. 

The  last  sentence  in  the  extract  from  Dr.  Cosin,  no 
doubt  refers  to  the  Act  13  Eliz.  c.  12,  in  which  it 
was  enacted,  that  any  professing  to  be  a  priest  or 
minister  of  God's  word  and  sacraments,  who  had  been 
ordained  by  any  other  form  than  that  authorized  by 
Edward  VI.  and  Quesn  Elizabeth,  should  be  called 
upon  to.  declare  his  assent  and  subscribe  to  the  Arti- 
cles of  religion.     The  parties  more  particularly  in  the 


48  THE   DOCTRIXE,  ETC. 

eye  of  tlie  framers  of  the  Act  were  probably  those 
ordained  by  the  Romish  form,  but  the  application  of 
the  clause  was  of  course  general. 

True,  as  we  have  already  observed,  after  the  Ee- 
storation  this  was  altered.  The  Act  of  Uniformity 
13,  14  Car.  II.  c.  4  §§  13,  14,  requires  that  all  admit- 
ted to  any  ''  ecclesiastical  promotion  or  dignity  what- 
soever" in  our  Church,  or  to  administer  the  Lord's 
Supper,  should  have  had  "  Episcopal  ordination." 
And  a  clause  of  a  similar  kind  was  added  in  the 
Preface  to  the  Ordination  Services ;  the  words,  "  or 
hath  had  formerly  Episcopal  consecration  or  ordina- 
tion," being  inserted  at  that  time. 

Bat  this  could  not  affect  the  doctrine  of  our 
Church  as  previously  laid  down  in  the  Articles.  The 
Article  declaring  the  doctrine  of  our  Church  on  the 
subject  of  admission  to  the  ministerial  office  remained 
the  same  as  it  was  when  ministers  of  the  Foreign 
Non-Episcopal  Churches  were  freely  permitted  to 
minister  in  our  churches.  But  the  Episcopal  form 
of  church  government  being  established  in  our 
Church,  it  was  very  reasonably  required  by  the  Act, 
that  all  who  held  any  "  promotion"  in  it  should  have 
received  Episcopal  ordination,  and  this  especially  at 
a  time  when  the  benefices  of  the  Church  had  been 
filled  by  men  attached  to  the  Presbyterian  form  of 
church  government,  and  the  Episcopalian  ministers 
ejected  from  them.  The  state  of  things  at  the  time 
shows  the  object  which  the  Act  had  in  view,  as  no 
attempt  had  been  made  previouly  to  get  such  a  law 
passed  against  the  admission  of  ministers  of  Non- 
Episcopal  Churches.     And  in  the  very  next  section 


THE   DOCTKINE,  ETC.  49 

of  the  Act  (§  15)  we  find  a  recognition  of  those  com- 
munities as  "  the  Foreign  Keformed  Churches." 
The  fact  that  our  Church  requires  all  who  hold  office 
in  her  communion  to  be  ordained  according  to  that 
form  of  church  government  which  she  has  chosen  to 
follow,  proves  nothing  as  to  her  doctrine  on  the  ab- 
stract question  of  the  validity  of  the  Orders  of  Kon- 
Episcopal  Churches. 

Once  more ;  if  it  were  the  case  that  our  Church 
held  all  but  Episcopal  ordinations  to  be  invalid,  and 
that  only  those  who  have  been  ordained  by  bishops 
are  entitled  to  preach  the  word  and  administer  both 
the  sacraments,  the  whole  Bench  of  Bishops  have 
been  for  more  than  a  century,  if  not  at  the  present 
moment,  involved  in  the  guilt  of  acting  directly  con- 
trary to  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  ;  for  the  mission- 
aries sent  out  as  ordained  ministers  by  the  Society 
for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel,  which  is  under  the 
especial  direction  of  the  Bench  of  Bishops,  used  to  be 
for  the  most  part  only  in  Lutheran  orders ;  and  if 
the  practice  has  been  given  up,  its  discontinuance 
must  be  of  very  recent  date. 

On  these  grounds,  then,  namely,  the  witness  of  our 
early  divines,  the  statements  of  our  Formularies,  and 
the  practice  of  our  Church,  we  maintain,  without 
hesitation,  that  our  Church  does  not  hold  the  doctrine 
of  the  exclusive  validity  of  Episcopal  Orders. 

We  admit  that,  in  that  great  alteration  that  gradu- 
ally took  place  subsequently  to  the  reign  of  Eliza- 
beth, in  the  tone  of  the  doctrine  practically  held  in 
our  Church  by  many  of  her  divines,  there  was  a 
great  change  on  this  point  as  well  as  others. 


50  THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

We  find  Lord  Bacon  complaining,  just  at  the  close 
of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  that  ,some  of  the  clergy 
denied  the  validity  of  the  Orders  conferred  in  the 
Foreign  Non-Episcopal  Churches.  He  says :  *'  Some 
indiscreet  persons  have  been  bold  in  open  preaching 
to  use  dishonorable  and  derogatory  speech  and  cen- 
sure of  the  Churches  abroad ;  and  that  so  far,  as 
as  some  of  our  men,  as  I  have  heard,  ordained  in 
foreign  parts,  have  been  pronounced  to  be  no  law- 
ful ministers."  {Advertisement  touch,  the  Controv.  of 
the  Church  of  Eng. ;  Works,  ii.  514,  ed.  1819.) 

This  is  another  proof  that  men  so  ordained  were 
allowed  by  public  authority  to  minister  in  our 
Church  ;  and  also,  no  doubt,  a  proof  that  there  had 
then  arisen  a  school  of  divines  among  us  that  denied 
the  validity  of  their  Orders.  But  whatever  might 
be  the  case  with  some  hot-headed  men  in  our 
Church,  we  do  not  find  the  more  eminent  divines  even 
of  that  new  school  taking  such  ground.  The  utmost 
length  to  which  they  go,  is  to  leave  the  question  of 
the  validity  of  such  ordinations  doubtful,  and  decline 
the  determination  of  it ;  always,  as  far  as  we  can  re- 
collect, protesting  against  their  having  any  notion  of 
denying  to  the  Foreign  Non-Episcopal  Churches  the 
character  and  essential  privileges  of  Churches  of 
Christ,  however  imperfectly  constituted  they  might 
consider  them  to  be. 

Bishop  Andrews,  for  instance,  might  perhaps  have 
felt  a  difficulty  with  respect  to  much  that  our  earlier 
divines  had  written  upon  the  subject;  but,  neverthe- 
ess,  he  says,  when  speaking  on  the  subject  of  the 


THE   DOCTKIIS^E,  ETC.  51 

proper  form  of  government  for  the  Churcli,  in  his 
Letters,  in  1618,  to  Du  Moulin: 

"  And  yet,  though  our  government  be  by  Divine  right,  it  follows 
not,  either  that  there  is  '  no  salvation,'  or  that  '  a  Church  can  not 
stand  without  it.'  He  must  needs  be  stone  blind,  that  sees  not 
Churches  standing  without  it :  he  must  needs  be  made  of  iron,  and 
hard-hearted,  that  denies  them  salvation.  We  are  not  made  of  that 
metal ;  we  are  none  of  those  ironsides ;  we  put  a  wide  difference  be- 
twixt them.  Somewhat  may  be  wanting  that  is  of  Divine  right,  (at 
least  in  the  external  government,)  and  yet  salvation  may  be  had. 
.  .  .  .  This  is  not  to  damn  any  thing,  to  prefer  a  better  tJiing 
before  it :  this  is  not  to  damn  your  Church,  to  recall  it  to  another 
form,  that  all  antiquity  was  better  pleased  with,  that  is,  to  ours :  and 
this,  when  God  shall  grant  the  opportunity,  and  your  estate  may 
Dear  it."  {Second  Lett,  to  JDu  Moulin.  See  Wordsw.  Christ.  Instit. 
vol.  iii.  p.  239.) 

After  liim,  Arclibishop  Bramliall  took  the  highest 
ground  among,  the  eminent  divines  of  that  day  in 
favor  of  Episcopacy  ;  but,  nevertheless,  was  far  from 
pronouncing  all  but  Episcopal  Orders  invalid. 
Writing,  in  1643,  against  the  Separatists,  (as  the  Dis- 
senters were  then  called,)  he  says : 

"  In  a  diiference  of  ways,  every  pious  and  peaceable  Christian,  out 
of  his  discretion  and  care  of  his  own  salvation,  will  inquire  which  is 
*  via  tutissima' — '  the  safest  way.'  ....  And  seeing  there  is 
required  to  the  essence  of  a  Church — first,  a  pastor;  secondly,  a 
flock ;  thirdly,  a  subordination  of  this  flock  to  this  pastor — where  wg 
are  not  sure  that  there  is  right  ordination,  what  assurance  have  we 
that  there  is  a  Church  ?  [But  then  he  immediately  adds]  I  write  not 
this  to  prejudge  our  neighbor  Churches.  I  dare  not  limit  the  extra- 
ordinary operation  of  God's  Spirit,  where  ordinary  means  are  want- 
ing without  the  default  of  the  persons.  He  gave  His  people  manna 
for  food  whilst  they  were  in  the  wilderness.  Necessity  is  a  strong 
plea.  Many  Protestant  Churches  lived  under  kings  and  bishops  of 
another  communion ;  others  had  particular  reasons  why  they  could 


52  THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

not  continue  or  introduce  bishops;  but  it  is  not  so  ivith  us. 
.     .     .     .    But  the  chief  reason  is,  because  I  do  not  make  this  way 

TO   BE   SIMPLY    NECESSARY,  BUT  ONLY  SHOW  WHAT  IS  SAFEST,  whcrC  SO 

many  Christians  are  of  another  mind.  I  know  that  there  is  great  dif' 
ference  between  a  valid  and  a  regular  ordination  ;  and  what  some 
choice  divines  do  write  of  case  of  necessity,  and  for  my  part  am  apt 
to  beUeve  that  God  looks  upon  His  people  in  mercy,  with  all  their 
prejudices ;  and  that  there  is  a  great  latitude  left  to  particular 
churches  in  the  constitution  of  their  ecclesiastical  regiment,  accord- 
ing to  the  exigence  of  time,  and  place,  and  persons,  so  as  order 
and  his  own  institution  be  observed."  {Serpent-Salve^  §  25.  Works^ 
Oxf  ed.  vol.  iii.  pp.  475,  4*76.) 

Again,  in  another  subsequent  work,  (written  about 
1659,)  lie  writes : 

"  I  can  not  assent  to  his  minor  proposition,  that  either  all  or  any 
considerable  part  of  the  Episcopal  divines  in  England  do  unchurch 
either  all  or  the  most  part  of  the  Protestant  Churches.  Ko  man  is 
hurt  but  by  himself.  They  unchurch  none  at  all,  but  leave  them  to 
stand  or  fall  to  their  own  Master.  They  do  not  unchurch  the  Swed- 
ish, Danish,  Bohemian  Churches,  and  many  other  Churches  in  Po- 
lonia,  Hungaria,  and  those  parts  of  the  world  which  have  an  ordi- 
nary uninterrupted  succession  of  pastors,  some  by  the  names  of 
Bishops,  others  under  the  name  of  Seniors,  unto  this  day.  (I 
meddle  not  with  the  Socinians.)  They  unchurch  not  the  Lutheran 
Churches  in  Germany,  who  both  assert  Episcopacy  in  their  confes- 
sions, and  have  actual  superintendents  in  their  practice,  and  would 
have  bishops,  name  and  thing,  if  it  were  in  their  power.  Let  him 
not  mistake  himself;  those  Churches  which  he  is  so  tender  of, 
though  they  be  better  known  to  us  by  reason  of  their  vicinity,  are 
so  far  from  being  '  all  or  the  most  part  of  the  Protestant  Churches,' 
that,  being  all  put  together,  they  amount  not  to  so  great  a  proportion 
as  the  Britannic  Churches  alone.  And  if  one  secluded  out  of  them 
all  those  who  want  an  ordinary  succession  without  their  own  faults, 
out  of  invincible  ignorance  of  necessity,  and  all  those  who  desire  to 
have  an  ordinary  succession,  either  explicitly  or  implicitly,  they  will 
be  reduced  to  a  little  flock  indeed.  But  let  him  set  his  heart  at  rest. 
i  will  remove  this  scruple  out  of  his  mind,  that  he  may  sleep  securely 


r.^'j^: 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  ^*^^  ^53 

V  ^^^^" 
upon  both  ears.  Episcopal  divines  do  not  deny  those  ^Churches  to 
he  true  Churches  wherein  salvation  may  bs  had.  We  advise  t/hejtHj^^as 
it  is  our  duty,  to  be  circumspect  for  themselves,  and  not  to  put  it  to 
more  question,  whetlier  they  have  Ordination  or  not,  or  desert  the 
general  practice  of  the  Universal  Church  for  nothing,  when  they 
may  clear  it  if  they  please.  Their  case  is  not  the  same  with  those 
who  labor  under  invincible  necessity.  .  .  .  Episcopal  divines 
will  readily  subscribe  to  the  determination  of  the  learned  Bishop  of 
Winchester  [Andrews]  in  his  Answer  to  the  Second  Epistle  of  Moli- 
nce.us  [quoting  the  passage  we  have  given  above.]  This  mistake 
proceedeth  from  not  distinguishing  between  the  true  nature  and  es- 
sence of  a  Church,  which  we  do  readily  grant  them^  and  the  integrity 
and  perfection  of  a  Church,  which  we  can  not  grant  them  without 
swerving  from  the  judgment  of  the  Catholic  Church."  (  Vindlc.  of 
himself  and  the  Episcopal  Clergy^  c.  3 ;  WorTcs^  vol.  iii.  pp.  517, 
518.  See  also  his  Replication  to  the  Bishop  of  Ghalcedon^  Answ.  to 
Pref  §  1  ;    Works,  iii.,  25,  26  ;  and  c.  1,  §  2.     lb.  69,  70.) 

And  here  we  must  not  omit  to  notice,  in  passing, 
(what  this  last  extract  indicates,  and  is  fully  con- 
firmed elsewhere  in  his  Worhs^)  that  there  is  another 
material  difference  in  his  views  from  those  of  our 
modern  Tractarians,  namely,  that  what  he  specially 
contends  for,  is  a  succession  of  pastors,  not  necessa- 
rily bishops  consecrated  hy  bishops^  and  that  out  of 
these  pastors  one  should  be  appointed  as  president 
over  the  rest ;  and,  therefore,  he  speaks  favorably  of 
the  Lutheran  Churches.  He  says,  elsewhere,  ex- 
pressly, of  "  most"  of  the  Protestant  Churches  "  in 
High  Germany,"  ^'  all  these  have  their  bishops  or  su- 
perintendents, ivhich  is  all' one  f  .  .  .  "three 
parts  of  four  of  the  Protestant  Churches  have  either 
bishops  or  superintendents,  which  is  alloneJ^  {Sirpent- 
Salvs;  Worhs^  iii.  480,  485.)  He  does  not,  therefore, 
insist  so  much  upon  a  succession  of  bishops  conse- 


54:  THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

crated  by  bishops,  as  upon  the  adoption  of  the  Epis- 
copal form  of  government.     But  this  by  the  way. 

We  may  judge,  then,  from  these  passages  of 
Bishop  Andrews  and  Archbishop  Bramhall,  what 
would  have  been  the  feelings  of  the  most  eminent 
even  of  our  High  Church  divines  respecting  the  lan- 
guage adopted  on  this  subject  by  the  Tractarian 
school. 

We  will  now  add  a  few  of  the  numerous  testimo- 
nies that  could  be  given  from  the  writings  of  our 
most  celebrated  divines,  since  the  close  of  Queen 
Elizabeth's  reign  to  the  present  day,  showing  the 
light  in  which  they  regarded  the  Orders  of  the  Scotch 
and  Foreign  Non-Episcopal  Churches. 

Of  Archbishop  Bancroft's  opinion  we  may  form 
some  judgment  from  the  countenance  he  gave  to  the 
work  of  his  chaplain,  Eogers,  on  the  XXXIX.  Arti- 
cles, already  quoted.  But,  indirectly,  we  have  a  still 
more  express  testimony  of  his  judgment  on  the  sub- 
ject, as  well  as  of  several  of  his  brother  bishops,  in 
the  following  passage  in  Archbishop  Spotiswood's 
History  of  Scotland,  The  Archbishop  relates  that 
when,  in  1610,  a  regular  episcopate  was  about  to  be 
conferred  upon  the  Church  of  Scotland,  by  the  con- 
secration of  three  Scottish  clergymen  (of  whom 
Spotiswood  himself  was  one)  as  bishops  of  that 
Church,  by  the  Bishops  of  London,  Ely,  and  Bath, 
at  the  chapel  of  London- House : 

"A  question  in  the  mean  time  was  moved  by  Dr.  Andrews, 
Bishop  of  Ely,  touching  the  consecration  of  the  Scottish  bishops, 
who,  as  he  said,  '  must  first  be  ordained  presbyters  as  having  re- 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  55 

ceived  no  ordination  from  a  bishop.'  The  Archbishop  of  Canter, 
bury,  Dr.  Bancroft,  who  was  by,  maintained,  '  that  thereof  there 
was  no  necessity,  seeing  where  bishops  could  not  be  had,  the  ordina- 
tion given  by  the  presbyters  must  be  esteemed  lawful ;  otherwise, 
that  it  might  be  doubted  if  there  were  any  lawful  vocation  in  most 
of  the  Reformed  Churches.'  This  applauded  to  by  the  other 
bishops,  Ely  acquiesced  ;  and  at  the  day  and  in  the  place  appointed 
the  three  Scottish  bishops  were  consecrated."  {Spotistoood's  Hist, 
of  Church  and  State  of  Scotland,  4th  ed.  16'77,  fol.  p.  614.) 

Next,  let  US  hear  Arclibishop  Usher's  judgment, 
given  at  the  latter  end  of  his  life  : 

*'  I  have  ever  declared  my  opinion  to  be,  that  episcopus  ef  presby- 
ter gradu  tantmn  differunt  non  ordine,  and  consequently  that  in 
places  where  bishops  can  not  be  had,  the  ordination  by  presbyters 
standeth  valid ;  yet,  on  the  other  side,  holding  as  I  do  that  a  bishop 
hath  superiority  in  degree  above  a  presbyter,  you  may  easily  judge 
that  the  ordination  made  by  such  presbyters  as  have  severed  them- 
selves from  those  bishops  unto  whom  they  had  sworn  canonical 
obedience,  can  not  possibly,  by  me,  be  excused  from  being  schisraa- 
tical.  And  howsoever  I  must  needs  think  that  the  Churches  which 
have  no  bishops  are  thereby  become  very  much  defective  in  their 
government,  and  that  the  Churches  in  France,  who  living  under  a 
Popish  power,  can  not  do  what  they  would,  are  more  excusable  in 
this  defect  than  the  Lrow  Countries,  that  live  under  a  free  State,  yet, 
for  the  testifying  my  communion  with  these  Churches,  (which  I  do 
love  and  honor  as  true  members  of  the  Church  universal,)  I  do  pro- 
fess that,  with  like  affection,  I  should  receive  the  blessed  sacrament 
at  the  hands  of  the  Dutch  ministers,  if  I  were  in  Holland,  as  I 
should  do  at  the  hands  of  the  French  ministers  if  I  were  in  Charen- 
tone."  {^Judgment  of  tfie  late  Archbishop  of  Armagh^  etc.  By  N. 
Bernard.     Lond.  1657,  8vo,  pp.  125-12V.) 

No  one  probably  will  question  the  high  yalue 
which  Bishop  Hall  had  for  Episcopacy,  manifested  in 
his  Treatise  on  the  subject  Yet,  in  a  Discourse  ad- 
dressed to  the  Clergy  of  his  Diocese  as  Bishop  of 


66  THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

Norwich,  when  speaking  of  the  differences  between 
the  Church  of  England  and  the  Non-Episcopal 
Churches  abroad,  he  writes  thus : 

"  Blessed  be  God,  there  is  no  difference  in  any  essential  matter  be- 
twixt the  Church  of  England  and  her  sisters  of  the  Reformation. 
We  accord  in  every  point  of  Christian  doctrine  without  the  least  va- 
riation ;  their  public  Confessions  and  ours  are  sufficient  convictions 
to  the  world  of  our  full  and  absolute  agreement.  The  only  differ- 
ence is,  in  the  form  of  outward  administration ;  wherein  also  we 
are  so  far  agreed,  as  that  we  all  profess  this  form  not  to  he  essential 
to  the  being  of  a  Churchy  though  much  importing  the  well  or  better 
being  of  it,  according  to  our  several  apprehensions  thereof;  and 
that  we  do  all  retain  a  reverence  and  loving  opinion  of  each  other  in 
our  own  several  ways ;  not  seeing  any  reason  why  so  poor  a  diversity 
should  work  any  alienation  of  affection  in  us  one  towards  another." 
(7%e  Peacemaker- ^  §  6,  published  in  1647.  WorUs^  by  Pratt,  vol.  viii. 
p.  56.) 

So  also  our  learned  Bishop  Davenant : 

"  In  a  disordered  Church,  where  all  the  bishops  have  fallen  into 
heresy  or  idolatry,  where  they  have  refused  to  ordain  orthodox  min- 
isters, where  they  have  considered  those  only  who  are  associates  of 
their  faction  and  error  to  be  worthy  of  holy  orders,  if  orthodox 
presbyters  (for  the  preservation  of  the  Church)  are  compelled  to  or- 
dain other  presbyters,  I  could  not  venture  to  pronounce  such  ordi- 
nations useless  and  invalid."  And  this  he  proceeds  to  apply  to  the 
case  of  certain  Protestant  Churches.  {Determ.  qucest^  etc.  Cant. 
16S4,  fol.,  q.  42,  p.  191.) 

And  in  his  Letter  to  Mr.  Dury,  on  promoting 
peace  among  the  Protestant  Churches,  he  says : 

"  Moreover,  I  doubt  not  at  all  but  that  the  Saxon  and  Helvetian 
Churches,  and  others  which  either  consent  with  these,  or  those,  ac- 
knowledge themselves  to  have,  and  to  desire  to  retain,  brotherly 
communion  with  the  English,  Scottish,  Irish,  and  other  Foreign  Re- 
formed Churches.     Surely,  as  concerning  us,  although  we  consent 


THE   D0CTEII!^E,  ETC.  67 

not  with  them  in  all  points  and  title  of  controversial  divinity,  yet  we 
acknowledge  them  brethren  in  Christ,  and  protest  ourselves  to  have  a 
brotherly  and  holy  communion  with  them."  (Prefixed  to  his  Exhort. 
to  broth,  comm.  betwixt  the  Protestant  Churches.  Lond.  1641.  12mo, 
p.  33.     See  also  the  Treatise  following  it.) 

One  of  the  most  eminent  and  able  divines  of  our 
Church  was  Bishop  Morton,  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, bishop  successively  of  Chester,  Litchfield,  and 
Durham.     And  thus  he  speaks : 

"  Where  the  bishops  degenerate  into  wolves,  there  the  presb3i;ers 
regain  their  ancient  right  of  ordaining,  (consecrandi.)  I  call  it  an. 
cient,  because  that  the  Episcopate  and  the  Presbyterate  are,  jure 
divino^  the  same,  is  laid  down  by  Marsilius,  Gratian,  etc."  {Apol. 
Cathol.  pt.  1,  lib.  1,  c.  21.     Ed.  2d,  Lond.  1606,  8vo,  p.  '74.) 

Another  able  prelate  of  our  Church  at  this  period, 
and  a  strenuous  defender  of  Episcopacy,  was  Dr. 
George  Downham.  But  in  a  sermon  on  this  subject, 
after  having  undertaken  to  show  the  jus  divinum  of 
Episcopacy  in  the  sense  of  being  an  apostolical  insti- 
tution, he  guards  himself  against  being  supposed  to 
take  the  ground  which  the  Puritans  took  in  behalf 
of  their  platform  of  church  government,  namely,  that 
because  it  was  to  be  found  in  the  Scriptures,  there- 
fore it  was  "perpetually  and  unchangeably  neces- 
sary in  all  Churches,"  remarking  : 

"  Although  we  be  well  assured  that  the  form  of  government  by 
bishops  is  the  best,  as  having  not  only  the  warrant  of  Scripture  for 
the  first  institution,  but  also  the  perpetual  practice  of  the  Church 
from  the  Apostles'  time  to  our  age  for  the  continuance  of  it ;  not- 
withstanding, we  doubt  not,  but  where  this  may  not  be  had,  others 
may  be  admitted;  neither  do  we  deny  but  that  silver  is  good, 
though  gold  be  better."  (Serm  at  Consecr.  of  JBp.  of  Bath  and 
Wells.     1608,  4to,  p.  95.) 

8^ 


68  THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

And  ill  his  Defence  of  this  sermon,  referring  to  this 
passage,  he  says : 

"  Which  objection  and  answer  I  inserted  of  purpose  into  the  ser- 
mon, to  preserve  the  credit  of  those  Reformed  Churches  where  the 
Presbyterian  discipline  is  established,  and  that  they  might  not  be  ex- 
posed or  left  naked  to  the  obloquies  of  the  Papists,"  {fief,  of  Serm. 
etc.  1611,  4to,  lib.  4,  c.  7,  pp.  145,  146.) 

And  expressly,  on   the  point  of  ordination,    he 

says : 

"Thus  have  I  reported  the  judgment  of  the  ancient  Church  as. 
cribing  the  ordinary  right  of  ordination  to  bishops,  but  yet,  not  so 
appropriating  it  unto  them  as  that  extraordinarily  and  in  case  of 
necessity  it  might  not  be  lawful  for  presbyters  to  ordain ;  and  much 
less  teaching  (as  the  Papists  imagine)  absolutely  a  nullity  in  the  ordi- 
nation which  is  not  performed  by  a  bishop.  For  suppose  a  Church 
(the  state  of  some  Reformed  Churches)  either  altogether  destitute 
of  a  bishop,  or  pestered  with  such  as  the  Popish  prelates  are, 
heretical  and  idolatrous,  by  whom  no  orthodoxal  ministers  might 
hope  to  be  ordained,  we  need  not  doubt  but  that  the  ancient 
Fathers  would,  in  such  a  case  of  necessity,  have  allowed  ordination 
without  a  bishop,  though  not  as  regular,  according  to  the  rules  of 
ordinary  church  government,  yet  as  effectual  and  as  justifiable  in 
the  want  of  a  bishop."     {Serm.  pp.  42,  43.) 

Lord  Bacon,  though  a  layman,  may  fairly  claim  a 
place  among  our  witnesses.  We  have  already  no- 
ticed his  rebuke  of  some  of  the  hot  spirits  of  his  day 
for  their  language  on  the  subject ;  but  let  us  hear  the 
impartial  testimony  of  such  a  mind  as  his  on  the 
general  question : 

"For  the  second  point,  that  there  should  be  but  one  form  of  dis- 
cipline in  all  Churches,  and  that  imposed  by  necessity  of  a  com- 
mandment and  prescript  out  of  the  word  of  God ;  it  is  a  matter 
volumes  have  been  compiled  of,  and  therefore  can  not  receive  a 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  59 

brief  redargution.  I,  for  my  part,  do  confess,  that  in  revolving  the 
Scriptures,  I  could  never  find  any  such  thing :  but  that  God  had  left 
the  like  liberty  to  the  Church  government,  as  he  had  done  to  the 
civil  government ;  to  be  varied  according  to  time,  and  place,  and  ac- 
cidents, which  nevertheless  his  high  and  divine  providence  doth 
order  and  dispose.  For  all  civil  governments  are  restrained  from 
God  unto  the  general  grounds  of  justice  and  manners;  but  the 
policies  and  forms  of  them  are  left  free :  so  that  monarchies  and 
kingdoms,  senates  and  seignories,  popular  states  and  communalties, 
are  lawful,  and  where  they  are  planted  ought  to  be  maintained  invi- 
olate. So  likewise  in  church  matters,  the  substance  of  doctrine  is 
immutable  ;  and  so  are  the  general  rules  of  government ;  but  for 
rites  and  ceremonies,  and  for  the  particular  hierarchies,  policies,  and 
discipline  of  churches,  they  be  left  at  large."  Cert.  Consid,  touch- 
ing Pacif.  of  Church;    Works,  ed.  1819,  vol.  ii.  pp.  529,  530.) 

Our  next  witness  shall  be  one  who  was  confessedly 
one  of  the  most  able  divines  of  his  time,  and  ranks 
high,  we  believe,  with  our  opponents ;  we  mean, 
Dean  Field. 

Discussing  the  question,  ''  whether  the  power  of 
ordination  be  so  essentially  annexed  to  the  order  of 
bishops,  that  none  but  bishops  may  in  any  case  or- 
dain," he  points  out  what  is  ''implied  in  the  calling 
of  ecclesiastical  ministers,"  and  that  the  bishop  of  a 
church  is  only  that  presbyter  that  is  appointed  to  be 
"  specially  pastor  of  the  place,  who  for  distinction 
sake  is  named  a  bishop,  to  whom  an  eminent  and 
peerless  power  is  given  for  the  avoiding  of  schisms 
and  factions  ;"  and  maintains  that  'Hhe  power  of  ec- 
clesiastical or  sacred  order"  ''  is  equal  and  the  same 
in  all  those  whom  we  call  presbyters,  that  is,  fatherly 
guides  of  God's  Church  and  people ;  and  that  only 
for  order's  sake,  and  the  preservation  of  peace,  there 


60  THE    DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

is  a  limitation  of  the  use  and  exercise  of  the  same ; 
adding : 

"  Hereunto  agree  all  the  best  learned  amongst  the  Romanists 
themselves,  freely  confessing  that  that  wherein  a  bishop  exeelleth  a 
presbyter  is  not  a  distinct  and  higher  order  or  power  of  order ^  hut  a 
kind  of  dignity  and  office  or  employment  only.''''  *'  Hence  it  foUow- 
eth,  that  many  things  which  in  some  cases  presbyters  may  lawfully 
do,  are  peculiarly  reserved  unto  bishops,  as  Hierome  noteth,  rather 
for  the  honor  of  their  ministry  than  the  necessity  of  any  law. 
And,  therefore,  we  read,  that  presbyters,  in  some  places,  and  at 
some  times,  did  impose  hands  and  confirm  such  as  were  baptized 
which,  when  Gregory,  bishop  of  Rome,  would  wholly  have  forbid- 
den, there  was  so  great  exception  taken  to  him  for  it,  that  he  left  it 
free  again.  And  who  knoweth  not,  that  all  presbyters,  in  cases  of 
necessity,  may  absolve  and  reconcile  penitents,  a  thing  in  ordinary 
course  appropriated  unto  bishops  ?  And  whynot^  hythe  same  reason^ 
ordain  presbyters  and  deacons  in  cases  of  like  necessity  ?  For  see- 
ing the  cause  why  they  are  forbidden  to  do  these  acts,  is,  because  to 
bishops  ordinarily  the  care  of  all  churches  is  committed,  and  to  them 
in  all  reason  the  ordination  of  such  as  must  serve  in  the  Church  per- 
taineth  that  have  the  chief  care  of  the  Church,  and  have  churches 
wherein  to  employ  them ;  which  only  bishops  have  as  long  as  they 
retain  their  standing,  and  not  presbyters,  being  but  assistants  to 
bishops  in  their  churches ;  if  they  become  enemies  to  God  and  true 
religion,  in  case  of  such  necessity,  as  the  care  and  government  of 
the  Church  is  devolved  to  the  presbyters  remaining  Catholic  and  be- 
ing of  a  better  spirit,  so  the  duty  of  ordaining  such  cls  are  to  assist 
or  succeed  them  in  the  work  of  the  ministry  pertains  to  them  like- 
wise.'''' ..."  Surely,  the  best  learned  in  the  Church  of  Rome 
in  former  times  durst  not  pronounce  all  ordinations  of  this  nature  to 
be  void.  For  not  only  Armachanus,  a  very  learned  and  worthy 
bishop,  but  as  it  appeareth  by  Alexander  of  Hales,  many  learned 
men  in  his  time,  and  before,  were  of  opinion  that,  in  some  cases, 
and  at  some  times,  presbyters  may  give  orders,  and  that  their  ordi- 
nations are  of  force  ;  though  to  do  so,  not  being  urged  by  extreme 
necessity,  can  not  be  excused  from  over-great  boldness  and  presump- 
tion." {Of  the  Church,  ed.  1628;  lib.  3,  c.  39,  pp.  155-157.  See 
also  ib.  lib.  5,  c.  27,  p.  500.) 


THE   DOCTRIlNrE,  ETC.  61 

Anotlier  most  important  witness  on  this  subject  is 
Archdeacon  Francis  Mason,  the  eminent  defender  of 
the  Episcopate  of  the  English  Church  against  the 
Komanists.  In  1641,  a  tract  written  by  him  was 
published,  vindicating  "  the  validity  of  the  ordination 
of  the  TYiinisters  of  the  Reformed  Churches  beyond  the 
seas  f^  being  some  papers  originally  intended  by 
him  to  form  part  of  his  celebrated  Vindication  of 
the  Church  of  England^  but  for  some  reason  omitted. 
Its  publication  in  this  way  has  caused  some  (especi- 
ally Mason's  translator,  Lindsay,)  to  cast  a  suspicion 
upon  its  genuineness  ;  but  not  only  is  it  spoken  of  as 
his  by  his  contemporary,  Dr.  Bernard,  Usher's  chap- 
lain, (Judgment  of  the  late  Archbishop  of  Armagh^ 
1657,  p.  133,)  and  first  appeared  hi  a  Collection  of 
Tracts  of  which  Usher  was  partly  the  author,  but  in  a 
letter  of  Dr.  Ward  (then  Master  of  Sidney  College, 
Cambridge)  to  Usher,  written  shortly  after  the  pub- 
lication of  the  first  edition  of  Mason's  work  in  1613, 
we  find  the  following  passages  :  "I  pray  you  inform 
me,  what  the  specialties  are  which  are  omitted  in  Mr. 
Mason's  book.  I  would  only  know  the  heads." 
And  then  returning  to  the  subject  at  the  close  of  the 
letter,  he  says;  "  I  had  no  leisure  when  I  was  with 
you  to  inquire  how  Mr.  Mason  doth  warrant  the  vo- 
cation and  ordination  of  the  ministers  of  the  Ee- 
formed  Churches  in  Foreign  parts."  {Parr^s  Life 
and  Letters  of  Usher ^  1686,  foL,  p.  31.) 

Now  in  this  tract  Mason  says  : 

The  bishop  "  in  his  consecration  receiveth  a  sacred  office,  an 
eminency,  a  jurisdiction,  a  dignity,  a  degree  of  Ecclesiastical  pre- 
eminence."    "  He  hath  no  higher  degree  in  respect  of  intentions  or 


62  THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

extension  of  the  cliaracter ;  but  he  hath  a  higher  degree,  that  is,  a 
more  excellent  place  in  respect  of  authority  and  jurisdiction  in 
spiritual  regiment.  Wherefor  seeing  a  presbyter  is  equal  to  a  bishop 
171  the  power  of  order,  he  hath  equally  intrinsical  power  to  give  or- 
dersr   (Pp.  160,  261.) 

The  speaker  for  the  Komanist,  (for  it  is  written  in 
the  form  of  a  dialogue,)  making  the  precise  objection 
of  the  Tractarians,  observes,  "  the  preeminence  of 
bishops  is  jure  divino ,''  to  which  Orthodox  answers 
thus  : 

"First,  if  you  mean  by  jure  divino^  that  which  is  according  to  the 
Scripture,  then  the  preeminence  of  bishops  is  jure  divino;  for  it 
hath  been  already  proved  to  be  according  to  the  Scripture.  Se- 
condly, if  by  jure  divino  you  mean  the  ordinance  of  God,  in  this 
sense  also  it  may  be  said  to  be  jure  divino.  For  it  is  an  ordinance 
of  the  apostle,  whereunto  they  were  directed  by  God's  Spirit,  even 
by  the  spirit  of  prophecy,  and  consequently  the  ordinance  of  God. 
But  if  by  jure  divino,  you  understand  a  law  and  commandment  of 
God,  binding  all  Christian  Churches,  universally,  perpetually,  un- 
changeably, and  with  such  absolute  necessity,  that  no  other  form  of 
regiment  may  in  any  case  be  admitted  ;  in  this  sense  neither  may  we 
grant  it,  nor  yet  can  you  prove  it,  to  be  jure  divino.^"*  *'  The  apos- 
tles, in  their  lifetime,  ordained  many  bishops,  and  left  a  fair  pattern 
to  posterity.  The  Church,  following  the  commodiousness  thereof, 
embraced  it  in  all  ages  through  the  Christian  world."     (lb.  p.  163.) 

The  Archdeacon  then  proceeds  to  defend  the  va- 
lidity of  the  ordinations  in  the  Foreign  Eeformed 
Churches,  first  on  the  ground  of  necessity  ;  to  which 
the  objector,  after  some  discussion,  ultimately  re- 
plies :  "  Suppose  that  ordination  might  be  devolved 
to  presbyters  in  case  of  necessity  ;  yet  the  necessity 
ceasing,  such  extraordinary  courses  should  likewise 
cease.  Why,  then,  do  they  continue  their  former 
practice?     Why  do  they  not  now  seek  to  receive 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  63 

their  orders  from  Protestant  bishops  ?"  To  which 
Orthodox  replies,  "  The  Churches  of  Germany  need 
not  to  seeh  to  foreign  bishops^  because  they  have  superin- 
tendents or  bishops  among  themselves.  And  as  for  other 
places  which  embrace  the  discipline  of  Geneva j  they  also 
have  bishops  in  effect ;"  which  he  proceeds  to  prove  by 
showing  that  they  have  among  them  those  who  have 
"the  substance  of  the  office."  And  he  concludes: 
"  Thus  much  concerning  the  ministers  of  other  Ee- 
formed  Churches,  wherein,  if  you  will  not  believe  us 
disputing  for  the  lawfulness  of  their  calling^  yet  you 
must  give  us  leave  to  believe  God  Himself  from 
heaven  approving  their  ministry  by  pouring  down  a 
blessing  upon  their  labors."     {lb.  pp.  173-176.) 

Another  eminent  divine  of  our  Church  was  Dr. 
Crakanthorp ;  and  he  likewise  justifies  the  Foreign 
Non-Episcopal  Churches  in  this  matter  on  the  ground 
of  necessity  ;  and  as  it  respects  their  not  taking  the 
first  opportunity  of  restoring  the  Episcopal  form  of 
government,  only  remarks : 

"Optamus  quidem  ex  anirao,  ut  cum  lex  ilia  necessitatis  jam 
ablata  sit,  vclint  et  omncs  Ecclesiae  ad  priscum  et  ab  universali  Ec- 
clesia  constantissime  observatura  ordinem,  et  ordinandi  modum  re- 
dire  ;  clavesque  suas  Episcopis  restituant :  sed  optamus,  non  cogimus. 
Jus  ct  impenum  in  eoricm  Eccleslas  nee  hahemus  oios,  nee  desidera- 
mus.'^  {Defens.  Eccles.  Anglic.  London,  1625,  4to.  c.  41,  §  12, 
pp.  246,  24Y.) 

We  must  not  forget  also  to  notice  the  similar  testi- 
mony of  the  learned  Dr.  Willet,  in  his  Synopsis 
Papismi^  of  which  the  fifth  edition  was  published  in 
1634,  under  the  authority  of  the  king's  letters  patent ; 


64  THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

but  we  must  content  ourselves  with  referring  our 
readers  to  the  work.  (See  bth  Gontrov.  q.  3,  p.  276.) 
But  one  of  the  most  important  testimonies  as  to 
the  doctrine  of  our  Church  and  her  most  able  divines 
on  this  subject,  is  that  of  Bishop  Cosin,  to  which  we 
have  already  referred.  It  occurs  in  a  letter  written 
from  Paris  in  1650  to  a  Mr.  Cordel,  who  scrupled  to 
communicate  with  the  French  Protestants.  To  the 
objection  of  Mr.  Cordel,  that  ^'they  have  no  priests/' 
Dr.  Cosin  thus  replies  : 

*'  Though  we  may  safely  say  and  maintain  it,  that  their  ministers 
are  not  so  duly  and  rightly  ordained  as  they  should  be  by  those  pre- 
lates and  bishops  of  the  Church  who  since  the  apostles'  time  have 
only  had  the  ordinary  power  and  authority  to  make  and  constitute  a 
priest,  yet  tlmt,  by  reason  of  this  defect,  there  is  a  total  nullity  in 
their  ordination,  or  that  they  he  therefore  no  priests  or  ministers  of 
the  Church  at  all,  because  they  are  ordained  by  those  only  who  are  no 
more  but  priests  and  ministers  among  them  ;  for  my  part,  I  would  he 
loath  to  affirm  and  determine  it  against  them.  And  these  are  my 
reasons.  First:  I  conceive  that  the  power  of  ordination  was  re- 
strained to  bishops  rather  by  apostolical  practice  and  the  perpetual 
custom  and  canons  of  the  Church,  than  by  any  absolute  precept  that 
either  Christ  or  His  apostles  gave  about  it.  Nor  can  I  yet  meet  with 
any  convincing  argument  to  set  it  upon  a  more  high  and  divine  insti- 
tution. From  which  customs  and  laws  of  the  Universal  Church 
(therein  following  the  example  of  the  apostles)  though  I  reckon  it  to 
be  a  great  presumption  and  fault  for  any  particular  Church  to  recede, 
and  may  truly  say  that  fieri  non  oportuit,  (when  the  college  of  mere 
presbyters  shall  ordain  and  make  a  priest,)  yet  I  can  not  so  peremp- 
torily say,  that  factum  non  valet^  and  pjro7iounce  the  ordination  to 
be  utterly  void.  For  as  in  the  case  of  baptism,  we  take  just  excep- 
tion against  a  layman  or  a  woman  that  presumes  to  give  it,  and  may 
as  justly  punish  them  by  the  censures  of  the  Church  wherein  they 
live,  for  taking  upon  them  to  do  that  office,  which  was  never  com- 
mitted unto  them  ;  yet,  if  once  they  have  done  it,  we  make  not  their 
act  and  administration  of  baptism  void  ;  nor  presume  we  to  iterate 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  65 

the  sacrament  after  them  ;  so  may  it  well  he  in  the  case  of  ordination 
and  the  ministers  of  the  Reformed  Congregations  in  France  ;  who 
are  liable  to  give  an  account  both  to  God  and  His  Church  in  general 
for  taking  upon  them  to  exercise  that  power  which  bj  the  perpetual 
practice  and  laws  of  His  Church  they  were  never  permitted  to  exer- 
cise, and  may  justly  be  faulted  for  it,  both  by  the  verdict  of  all 
others  who  are  members  of  the  Catholic  Church,  (as  we  are  that  ad- 
here to  the  laws  of  it  more  strictly  and  peaceably  than  they  do,)  and 
by  the  censures  of  a  lawful  meeting  or  general  council  in  that 
Church,  which  at  any  time  shall  come  to  have  authority  over  them. 
And  yet  all  this  while,  the  act  which  they  do,  though  it  be  disorderly 
done,  and  the  ordinations  which  they  make,  though  they  make  them 
unlawfully,  shall  not  he  altogether  null  and  invalid,  no  more  than 
the  act  of  .baptizing  before  mentioned,  or  the  act  of  consecrating 
and  administering  the  Eucharist  by  a  priest  that  is  suspended  and  re- 
strained from  exercising  his  power  and  office  in  the  Church. 
Therefore,  if  at  any  time  a  minister  so  ordained  in  these  French 
Churches  came  to  incorporate  himself  in  ours,  and  to  receive,  a  pub- 
lic charge  or  cure  of  souls  among  us  in  the  Church  of  England,  (as  I 
have  known  some  of  them  to  have  so  done  of  late,  and  can  instance 
in  many  other  before  my  time,)  our  bishops  did  not  reordain  him  be- 
fore they  admitted  him  to  his  charge,  as  they  must  have  done,  if  his 
former  ordination  here  in  France  had  been  void.  Nor  did  our  laws 
require  more  of  him  than  to  declare  his  public  consent  to  the  reli- 
gion received  amongst  us,  and  to  subscribe  the  Articles  established. 
And  I  love  not  to  be  herein  more  wise  or  harder  than  our  own 
Church  is,  which,  because  it  hath  never  publicly  condemned  and  pro- 
nounced the  ordinations  of  the  other  Reformed  Churches  to  be  void, 
as  it  doth  not  those  of  the  unreformed  Churches,  neither  among  the 
Papists,  (though  T  hear  that  the  ministers  here  in  France  and  Geneva 
use  so  to  do,  who  will  not  admit  a  Papist  priest  himself  to  exercise 
the  office  of  a  minister  among  them  till  they  have  reordained  him  ;) 
for  my  part,  as  to  that  particular,  /  dare  not  take  upon  me  to  con- 
demn or  determine  a  nullity  of  their  own  ordiiiations  against  them  ; 
though  in  the  interim  I  take  it  to  be  utterly  a  fault  among  them,  and 
a  great  presumption,  deserving  a  great  censure  to  be  inflicted  on 
them,  by  such  a  power  of  the  Church  as  may,  by  the  grace  of  God, 
be  at  any  time  duly  gathered  together  hereafter  against  them,  as  well 
for  the  amendment  of  many  other  disorders  and  defects  in  their 


66  THE    DOCTRIXE,  ETC. 

Church  as  for  this  particular  inorderly  ordination  and  defect  of  Epis- 
copacy amongst  tliem.  Besides  that  this  their  boldness,  presump- 
tion, and  novelty  (in  setting  up  themselves  without  any  invincible 
necessity  that  they  had  so  to  do,  against  the  apostolical  practice  and 
perpetual  order  of  God's  Church  till  their  days)  was  always  faulted, 
and  reserved  for  farther  censure,  in  due  time,  which  they  have 
justly  merited.  Secondly.*  There  have  been  both  learned  and  emi- 
nent men,  (as  well  in  former  ages  as  in  this,  and  even  among  the  Ro- 
man Catholics  as  well  as  Protestants,)  who  have  held  and  maintained 
it  for  good  and  passable  divinity,  that  presbyters  have  the  intrinsical 
power  of  ordination  in  ache  primo ;  though  for  the  avoiding  of 
schism  (as  St.  Hierom  speaks)  and  preserving  order  and  discipline 
in  the  Church,  they  have  been  restrained  ever  since  the  first  times, 
and  still  are,  (but  where  they  take  a  liberty  to  themselves  that  was 
never  duly  given  them,)  from  exercising  their  power  in  actu  se- 
cundo  ;  and,  therefore,  that  however  their  act  of  ordaining  of  other 
presbyters  shall  be  void,  according  to  the  strictness  of  the  canon,  (in 
regard  they  were  universally  prohibited  from  executing  that  act,  and 
breaking  the  order  and  discipline  of  the  Church,)  yet  that  the 
same  act  shall  not  be  simply  void  in  the  nature  of  the  thing,  in  re- 
gard that  the  intrinsical  power  remained,  when  the  exercise  of  it 
was  suspended  and  taken  from  them.  Of  this  opinion  and  judgment 
in  old  time  were  St.  Hierom  and  his  followers,  alleged  by  Gratian, 
dist.  93 ;  and  of  later  times,  the  Master  of  the  Sentences,  lib.  iv. 
dist.  24 ;  Bonavent,-  ibid.  9,  3,  art.  2  ;  with  other  schoolmen,  as  Au- 
reol.  ibid.  art.  2 ;  and  Anton,  de  Rosellis,  De  Potest.  Imper.  et 
Papally  part  iv.  c.  18 ;  and  in  this  later  age,  not  only  Armachanus, 
in  Sum.  ad  qucest.  art.  1,  11,  c.  2,  3,  etc.,  and  c.  7,  Alphons.  a  Cas- 
tro, (verb.  Episcopus,)  Mich.  Medina,  Be  sacr.  horn.  orig.  lib.  1,  c. 
5,  among  the  Roman  Catholics ;  but  likewise  Cassander  in  Consult. 
art.  14,  besides  Melancthon,  Clementius,  [?  Chemnitius,]  Gerardus, 
and  Calixtus,  amongst  the  Protestants ;  and  Bishop  Jewel,  (Def  2, 
p.  c.  3,  d.  1,  etc.  9  div.  1  ;)  Dr.  Field,  of  the  Church,  lib.  3,  c.  39 ; 
Hooker,  Eccles.  Pol.  lib.  3,  §  3,  ult.,  and  Mason,  among  the  divines 
of  our  own  Church.  All  which  authors  are  of  so  great  credit  with 
you  and  me,  that  though  we  are  not  altogether  of  their  mind,  yet  we 


*  We  have  taken  the  liberty  of  making  the  second  reason  commence  here,  (as 
it  evidently  does,)  instead  of  at  the  beginning  of  the  previous  sentence. 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  67 

would  be  loath  to  let  the  world  see  that  we  contradict  them  all,  and 
condemn  their  judgment  openly ;  as  needs  we  vnicst,  if  we  hold  the 
contrary,  and  say  that  the  ministers  of  the  Reformed  French 
Churches,  for  want  of  Episcopal  ordination,  have  no  order  at  all." 
[Our  readers  will  observe  here  what  the  view  of  Bishop  Cosin  was  as 
to  the  sentiments  of  Jewel,  Hooker,  Field,  and  Mason.] 

Dr.  Cosin  adds  several  other  reasons,  with  which, 
however,  we  need  not  trouble  our  readers,  except  the 
following : 

"  If  the  Church  and  kingdom  of  England  have  acknowledged  them, 
(as  they  did  in  admitting  of  them  when  they  fled  thither  for  refuge, 
and  placing  them  by  public  authority  in  divers  of  the  most  eminent 
cities  among  us,  without  prohibition  to  any  of  our  own  people  to  go 
and  communicate  with  them,)  why  should  we,  that  are  but  private 
persons,  utterly  disclaim  their  communion  in  their  own  country  ?" 

And,  therefore,  he  concludes  that : 

*'  Considering  there  is  no  prohibition  of  our  Church  against  it,  {as 
there  is  against  our  communicating  with  the  Papists,  and  that  well- 
grounded  upon  the  Scripture  and  will  of  God,)  I  do  not  see  but  that 
both  you,  and  others  that  are  with  you,  may  (either  in  case  of  neces- 
sity, when  you  can  not  have  the  sacrament  among  yourselves,  or  in 
regard  of  declaring  your  unity  in  professing  the  sam'e  religion,  which 
you  and  they  do)  go  otherwhiles  to  communicate  reverently  with 
them  of  the  French  Church."* 

Similar  sentiments  are  expressed  by  him  in  a  letter 
published  by  Dr.  E.  Watson,  (Lond.  1684,  8vo,)  en- 
titled Dr.  Cosines  Opinion^  when  Dean  of  Peterborough^ 
and  in  exile^  for  communicating  rather  with  Geneva  than 
Rome;  and  also  in  his  last  Will,  inserted  in  the  Pre- 
face to  his  Regni  Anglice  Relig,  et  Guhern.  Eccles. 
Lond.  1729,  4to. 

*  The  whole  of  this  letter  is  given  by  Basire  and  Bp.  Fleetwood,  (as  referred  to 
above.) 


68  THE  DOCXrvIXE,    ETC. 

It  is  almost  unnecessary  to  refer  to  the  Irenicum 
of  Bishop  Stillingfleet,  (first  pablished  by  him  in  1659, 
and  a  second  time  in  1662,)  where  he  maintains,  in  a 
long  and  elaborate  discussion  of  the  question,  that  no 
particular  form  of  Church  government  is  necessary, 
and  points  out  that  "  the  stoutest  champions  for  Epis- 
copacy" had  acknowledged,  "that  ordination  per- 
formed by  presbyters  in  cases  of  necessity  is  valid;" 
"which,"  he  adds,  "doth  evidently  prove  that  Epis- 
copal government  is  not  founded  upon  any  unalter- 
able Divine  right."     (Pt.  ii.  c.  8.) 

Thus  also  speaks  Dean  Sherlock: 

*'  I  do  allow  Episcopacy  to  be  an  Apostolical  institution,  and  the 
truly  ancient  and  catholic  government  of  the  Church,  of  which  more 
hereafter ;  but  yet  in  this  very  book  I  prove  industriously  and  at 
large,  that  in  case  of  necessity,  when  bishops  can  not  be  had,  a  church 
may  be  a  truly  catholic  church,  and  such  as  we  may  and  ought  to  com- 
municate with,  without  bishops,  in  vindication  of  some  Foreign  Re- 
formed Churches  who  have  none ;  and  therefore  I  do  not  make  Epis- 
copacy so  absolutely  necessary  to  catholic  communion  as  to  unchurch 
all  churches  which  have  it  not.*'  "  The  Church  of  England  does  not 
deny  but  that,  in  case  of  necessity,  the  ordination  of  presbyters  may 
be  valid."  ( Yindic.  of  some  Prot.  Principles,  &c.,  reprinted  in  Gib- 
son's Preserv.  vol.  iii.  pp.  410,  432.) 

So  the  excellent  Dr.  Claget : 

*'  The  Church  of  England  doth  not  unchurch  those  parts  of  Chris- 
tendom that  hold  the  unity  of  the  faith."  (See  Brief  Disc.  cone,  the 
Notes  of  the  Church,  pp.  166-169.) 

Even  the  non-juror  Archbishop  Sancroft,  in  some 
Admonitions  issued  to  the  clergy  of  his  Province  in 
1688,  speaks  in  fraternal  terms  of  the  Foreign  R3- 
formed  Churches,  exhorting  his  clergy — 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  69 

**  That  they  warmly  and  most  affectionately  exhort  them  [that  is, 
*'our  brethren  the  Protestant  Dissenters"]  to  join  with  us  in  daily  fer- 
vent prayer  to  the  God  of  peace  for  the  universal  blessed  union  of  all 
Reformed  Churches  both  at  home  and  abroad  against  our  common  ene- 
mies ;  that  all  they,  who  do  confess  the  holy  name  of  our  dear  Lord, 
and  do  agree  in  the  truth  of  His  holy  word,  may  also  meet  in  one 
holy  communion,  and  live  in  perfect  unity  and  godly  love."  (Z>'  Oyhfs 
Life  of  Sancrofi^  i.  325;  or  Wilk.  Cone.  iv.  619.) 

For  the  sentiments  of  Archbisliop  Wake,  to  the 
same  effect,  our  readers  may  consult  some  letters 
(written  in  1719)  given  in  the  4:th  Append,  to  Mo- 
sheimJs  Eccles,  Hist  translated  by  Maclaine,  Cent,  xviii. 
No.  xix.-xxii.;  one  of  which  is  to  "the  pastors  and 
professors  of  Geneva,"  whom  he  addresses  as  fr aires 
cliarissimi ;  and  in  another  (No.  xix)  he  says : 

*'  Ecclesias  Reformatas  etsi  in  aliquibus  a  nostra  Anglicana  dissen- 
tientes,  libenter  amplector.  Optarem  equidem  regimen  episcopale. 
.  .  .  .  et  ab  iis  omnibus  fuisset  retentum.  .  .  .  Interim  absit 
ut  ego  tam  ferrei  pectoris  sim,  ut  ob  ejusmodi  defectum  (sic  mihi 
absque  omni  invidia  appellare  liceat)  aliquas  earum  a  communione 
nostra  abscindendas  credam ;  aut,  cum  quibusdam  fiiriosis  inter  nos 
scriptoribus,  eas  nulla  vera  ac  valida  sacramenta  habere,  adeoque  vix 
Christianos  esse  pronuntiem."  (Mosheim,  by  Maclaine,  vol.  vi.  p. 
184,  ed.  1826.)  And  in  a  letter  to  Father  Courayer,  dated  July  9, 
1724,  he  again  expresses  the  same  sentiments.  (Mosheim^  ib.  p.  30, 
Cent.  xvii.  §  23.) 

In  1764:,  we  have  Archbishop  Seeker  following 
him  in  the  same  strain : 

"  Our  inclination  is  to  live  in  friendship  with  all  the  Protestant 
Churches.  We  assist  and  protect  those  on  the  continent  of  Europe 
as  well  as  we  are  able.  We  show  our  regard  to  that  of  Scotland  as 
often  as  we  have  an  opportunity."  (Answ.  to  Mayhew,  p.  68.  Life 
prefixed  to  Sermons^  ed.  1770,  p.  Ixvi.) 


70  THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC. 

And,  defending  our  Keformation,  in  one  of  Lis 
sermons  against  the  Komanists,  he  says : 

"  Supposing  we  had  even  acted  without,  and  separated  from,  our 
Church  governors,  as  our  Protestant  brethren  abroad  were  forced  to 
do :  was  there  not  a  cause  ?  When  the  word  of  God  was  hidden 
from  men  .  .  .  when  Church  authority,  by  supporting  such  things 
as  these,  became  inconsistent  with  the  ends  for  which  it  was  estab- 
lished, what  remedy  ivas  there  hut  to  throw  it  off  and  form  new  estab- 
lishments ?  If  in  these  there  were  any  irregularities,  they  were  the  faults 
of  those  who  forced  men  into  them,  and  are  of  no  consequence  in  com- 
parison vjith  the  reason  that  made  a  change  necessary.^'  (Serm.  vol. 
vi.  pp.  400,  401.) 

Still  more  strongly  speaks  the  late  Bisliop  Tom- 
line  : 

"  I  readily  acknowledge  that  there  is  no  precept  in  the  Xew  Testa- 
ment which  commands  that  every  Church  should  be  governed  by 
bishops.  No  Church  can  exist  without  some  government ;  but  though 
there  must  be  rules  and  orders  for  the  proper  discharge  of  the  offices 
of  public  worship,  though  there  must  be  fixed  regulations  concerning 
the  appointment  of  ministers ;  and  though  a  subordination  among 
them  is  expedient  in  the  highest  degree,  yet  it  does  not  follow  that 
all  these  things  must  be  precisely  the  same  in  every  Christian  coun- 
try ;  they  may  vary  with  the  other  varying  circumstances  of  human 
society,  with  the  extent  of  a  country,  the  manners  of  its  inhabitants, 
the  nature  of  its  civil  government,  and  many  other  peculiarities  which 
might  be  specified.  As  it  has  not  pleased  our  Almighty  Father  to 
prescribe  any  particular  form  of  civil  government  for  the  security  of 
temporal  comforts  to  His  rational  creatures,  so  neither  has  He  pre- 
scribed any  particular  form  of  ecclesiastical  polity  as  absolutely  ne- 
cessary to  the  attainment  of  eternal  happiness.  ...  As  the 
Scriptures  do  not  prescribe  any  definite  form  of  church  government, 
so  they  contain  no  directions  concerning  the  establishment  of  a  power 
by  which  ministers  are  to  be  admitted  to  their  sacred  office."  And 
therefore,  though  he  advocates  Episcopal  ordination  as  "  instituted 
by  the  apostles,"  he  does  not  maintain  it  as  necessary.  (Expos,  of 
Art.  23,  ed.  1799,  pp.  396,  398.) 


THE   DOCTRINE,  ETC.  71 

We  clos3  tlie  list  with  tlie  testimony  of  our  late 
respected  Primate^  Dr.  Howley. 

In  a  statement  published  by  his  authority  in  1841, 
the  Foreign  Protestant  Non-Episcopal  Churches  are 
spoken  of  as  "the  less  perfectly  constituted  of  the 
Protestant  Churches  of  Europe."  {Statem,  resp.  Jeru- 
salem  Bishopric^  p.  5.) 

And  in  1835,  a  letter  was  addressed  by  the  same 
Prelate,  in  the  name  of  himself  and  his  ^^  brother  bish- 
ops'^ to  "the  Moderator  of  the  Company  of  Pastors 
at  Geneva,"  expressing  their  ''^high  respect  for  the 
Protestant  Churches  on  the  Qontinent^''  and  speaking  of 
the  Genevan  Beformation  as  a  "noble  achievement, 
which  brought  light  out  of  darkness,  and  rescued  your 
Church  from  the  shackles  of  Papal  domination  and 
the  tyrannical  imposition  of  a  corrupt  faith,  and  a 
superstitious  ritual,"  wrought  by  "  illustrious  men, 
who,  under  the  direction  of  Almighty  God,  were  the 
instruments  of  this  happy  deliverance,"  "an  event 
not  less  glorious  to  Geneva  than  conducive  to  the 
success  of  the  Keformation."  The  whole  letter  has 
been  so  recently  published  in  the  public  Journals, 
that  we  need  only  give  these  short  extracts. 

Could  it  have  been  supposed,  that,  sixteen  years 
after,  his  successor  in  the  Primacy  was  to  be  assailed 
with  a  storm  of  vituperation,  and  even  branded  by 
an  Archdeacon  of  his  Province  as  a  heretic,  for  merely 
saying  that  the  Church  of  England  does  not  deny 
the  validity  of  the  Orders  of  such  Churches  ? 

But  in  those  sixteen  years  a  new  school  has  sprung 
up  in  our  Church,  chiefly  composed  of  its  younger 
members,  who  having  formed  in  their  own  minds, 


72  THE   DOCTKINE,  ETC. 

from  tlieir  perusal  of  Eomisli  and  Tractarian  works, 
a  Procrustean  standard  of  ecclesiastical  doctrine  and 
polity,  are  apparently  endeavoring,  in  the  total  disre- 
gard of  the  manifest  tenets  of  our  Church,  to  force 
upon  it  a  position  and  character  which  its  whole  his- 
tory repudiates.  The  right  of  private  judgment  has 
rarely  been  exercised  with  more  unbridled  arrogance 
than  by  those  among  us  who  professedly  disown  it. 
Under  the  thin  veil  of  high-sounding  phrases,  "the 
Church,"  "Catholic  consent,"  and  such  like,  the  Eom- 
ish  dreams  of  hot-headed  or  prejudiced,  and  often 
very  ill-informed  individuals,  are  urged  upon  the 
public  as  indubitable  verities,  which  it  were  a  sin  to 
suppose  that  our  Church  does  not  hold;  and  by  which 
all  who  differ  from  them,  from  the  highest  to  the 
lowest,  are  to  be  judged.  "We  say  deliberately,  even 
as  to  the  heads  of  the  party,  very  ill-informed  indi- 
viduals ;  and  on  this  ground,  that  whatever  may  be 
their  learning  in  other  respects,  (and  it  is  too  often  to 
be  seen  principally  in  the  trifles  of  the  Church  cere- 
monial,) they  seem  rather  to  avoid  than  examine  those 
sources  of  information  which  best  show  what  the 
doctrine  of  our  Church  really  is,  as  was  abundantly 
proved  in  the  Gorham  case ;  and  palm  upon  our 
Church  views  and  doctrines  which  they  have  gathered 
by  their  private  judgment  from  antiquity. 

But  our  space  warns  us  that  we  must  restrain  our 
pen.  We  deeply  regret  that  our  Church  should  be 
continually  suffering  from  these  internal  dissensions. 
But  we  fear  that,  if  she  is  still  to  remain  a  witness  for 
Protestant  truth,  a  conflict  awaits  her,  both  from  in- 
ternal and  external  foes,  more  severe  than  any  she 


THE   DOCTKINE,  ETC.  '      73 

has  yet  encountered.  Would  tliat  we  could  see  a 
more  lively  consciousness  of  this  coming  struggle 
manifested  among  those,  lay  and  clerical,  who,  under 
God,  must  be  the  instruments  for  her  preservation. 
Few,  however,  seem  to  realize  the  true  character  of 
the  present  times. 

Meanwhile,  no  fear  need  be  entertained  that  the 
public  discussion  of  Tractarian  dogmas  will  show  that 
our  Church  has  a  leaning  toward  them.  Just  the 
contrary  will,  we  are  convinced,  be  the  case.  And 
we  leave  the  Archbishop's  assailants  quietly  to  weigh 
the  testimonies  given  above,  and  judge  for  themselves 
how  much  they  are  likely  to  gain  by  their  recent  out- 
break— an  outbreak  as  unprecedented  for  its  contempt 
for  constituted  authorities  as  it  is  destitute  of  even 
the  shadow  of  an  excuse  for  it. 
4 


APPENDIX  A. 

Further  illustrations  and  proofs  are  here  given 
from  the  replies  which  Mr.  Goode  made  to  the  various 
attacks'^  upon  his  Yindication, 

02^  THE   DOCTRINE    OF  THE   ARTICLES. 

{Reply  to  Bishop  of  Exeter.) 

The  19th  Article  is  "  Of  the  Church,"  and  stands 
thus:  "The  visible  Church  of  Christ  is  a  congrega- 
tion of  faithful  men,  in  which  the  pure  word  of  God 
is  preached,  and  the  Sacraments  be  duly  ministered 
according  to  God's  ordinance,  in  all  things  that  of 
necessity  be  requisite  to  the  same." 

From  this  the  Bishop  of  Exeter  deduces  three  posi- 
tions: First^  that  in  any  body  professing  to  be  a 
Church  of  Christ,  "the  pure  word  of  God"  is  to  be 
preached;  a  deduction  which  I  shall  not  dispute. 
Secondly^  it  must  be  ^^ preached ;^''  "THAT  IS,"  says  his 
Lordship,  "  publicly  set  forth  for  the  instruction  of 
the  people  hy  persons  duly  empowered^  or  sent ^  for  that 
purpose  ;  for  we  know  from  St.  Paul  that  the  word 
can  not  be  'preached' — ^that  is,  not  merely  recited  or 

*  These  attacks  raised  side  issues  which  showed  the  weakness  of  the  cause 
which  they  were  raised  to  defend.  To  reproduce  them  would  be  a  weariness  to 
the  reader,  and  expose  us  to  the  charge  of  proving  a  second,  third,  and  fourth 
time  what  liad  been  alreadj^  made  certain.  The  only  points  of  any  interest  in  the 
various  pamphlets  are  added  in  the  extracts  following. 


APPENDIX.  75 

taught,  but  proclaimed  with  assurance  and  authority — 
except  by  those  who  are  duly  *sent/  authorized  by 
Him  whose  word  they  proclaim,  Krjpvice; — men  unto 
whom  God  *  hath  committed  the  word  of  reconcilia- 
tion/ "     (P.  14.) 

Now  I  beg  to  ask,  where  does  his  Lordship  find  all 
this  in  the  Article  ?  The  Article  merely  uses  the  word 
"preached."  Does  his  Lordship  really  suppose  that 
any  one  in  search  of  truth  will  allow  him  to  raise  out 
of  this  single  word  his  whole  doctrine  of  the  sort  of 
commission  necessary  to  qualify  a  man  for  preaching 
the  Gospel  ?  Has  he  forgotten  that  even  laymen  were 
sometimes  allowed  to  preach  in  the  early  Church,  and 
that  in  the  presence  of  a  bishop  ?  Or,  still  more,  has 
he  forgotten  that  '^they  which  were  scattered  abroad, 
upon  the  persecution  that  arose  about  Stephen,  tra- 
velled as  far  as  Phenice,  and  Cyprus,  and  Antioch, 
preaching  the  wordj  etc.  .  .  .  And  the  hand  of 
the  Lord  was  with  them,  and  a  great  number  believed 
and  turned  unto  the  Lord  ?"  (Acts  11 :  19-21.)  Or 
(to  mention  no  more)  has  he  forgotten  Apollos,  who, 
when  "knowing  only  the  baptism  of  John,"  and 
therefore  certainly  not  ordained  by  any  apostle  or 
Christian  bishop,  "spake  and  taught  diligently  the 
things  of  the  Lord,"  which  I  suppose  amounts  to 
preaching;  and  after  receiving  farther  instruction  from 
Aquila  and  Priscilla,  "  helped  them  much  which  had 
believed  through  grace ;  for  he  mightily  convinced 
the  Jews,  and  that  publicly ,  showing  by  the  Scriptures 
that  Jesus  was  Christ?"  (Acts  18  :  24,  etc.)  All 
these,  it  seems,  knew  nothing  of  the  Bishop  of  Exe- 
ter's  doctrine,   that   nobody  might,   or  even   could^ 


16  APPENDIX. 

"preach,"  but  one  specially  ordained  and  publicly  set 
apart  by  Divine  commission  for  the  purpose. 

Of  course  I  am  not  here  touching  the  question  of 
the  necessity  of  an  inward  Divine  call  and  qualifica- 
tion for  being  an  ambassador  of  Christ,  or  of  what 
Apostolical  practice  teaches  us  to  be  proper  for  the 
due  appointment  of  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel  in  a 
regularly  constituted  Church.  All  I  wish  now  to 
point  attention  to  is  the  absurdity  (for  I  can  use  no 
milder  term)  of  attempting  to  raise  a  whole  system 
of  church  government  out  of  the  single  word 
"preach." 

His  Lordship's  third  deduction  is  that,  as  the  Arti- 
cle requires,  that  in  a  Church  "the  Sacraments  be 
duly  ministered  in  all  those  things  that  of  necessity 
are  requisite  to  the  same,"  and  the  25th  Article  says, 
that  sacraments  are  "effectual  signs  of  grace,  etc.,  by 
which  God  doth  work  invisibly  in  us,"  etc. ;  and  a 
Homily  says,  that  "  in  them  God  embrace th  us,"  etc. ; 
"manifestly,  therefore,  among  ^ those  things  that  of 
necessity  are  requisite  to  the  duly  ministering  the 
same'  must  be  authority  from  God^  given  to  those  who 
minister  them;"  and  it  is  added,  that  "our  Church 
has  not  left  the  point  to  be  deduced  by  our  sense  of 
what  is  right:  it  is  expressly  declared  in  the  26th 
Article  that  they  who  minister  the  Sacraments  *  do 
not  the  same  in  their  own  name,  but  in  Christ's,  and 
do  minister  by  his  commission  and  authority  f''  and 
hence  the  consequence  is  deduced,  that  the  Sacra- 
ments can  only  be  "  duly  ministered"  "by  those  who 
have  cormnission  and  authority  from  God  given  to 
them  for  that  purpose;"  in  other  words,  individuals 


APPENDIX.  77 

divinely  commissioned  *'for  tbat  purpose."  Now, 
one  single  consideration  annitiilates  the  whole  of  this 
argumentation;  for  if  it  were  correct,  lay-baptism 
would  be  wholly  invalid,  which  the  Bishop  well 
knows  is  not  the  doctrine  of  our  Church ;  and  there- 
fore his  third  deduction  is  as  groundless  as  his  second. 
The  question,  whether  non-episcopally  ordained  min- 
isters may  not  be  said  to  minister  by  Chrisf  s  commis- 
sion and  authority,  is  one  that  will  more  properly 
come  under  consideration  in  reviewing  the  meaning 
of  the  23d  Article ;  to  which  the  Bishop  next  directs 
our  attention. 

This  Article  is  entitled,  "Of  ministering  in  the 
Congregation,"  and  runs  thus:  "It  is  not  lawful  for 
any  man  to  take  upon  him  the  office  of  public  preach- 
ing or  ministering  the  Sacraments  in  the  congregation, 
before  he  be  lawfully  called  and  sent  to  execute  the 
same.  And  those  we  ought  to  judge  lawfully  called 
and  sent,  which  be  chosen  and  called  to  this  work  by 
men  who  have  public  authority  given  unto  them  in 
the  congregation  to  call  and  send  ministers  into  the 
Lord's  vineyard." 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  any  one  can  read 
this  Article,  and  not  see  how  carefully  it  is  worded 
so  as  not  to  exclude  from  "  lawful  calling"  the  min- 
isters of  the  Foreign  Protestant  Churches.  As  Pro- 
fessor Hey  says,  in  his  Commentary  on  the  Articles^ 
the  expression  "  who  have  public  authority  given 
unto  them  in  the  congregation,"  "seems  to  leave  the 
manner  of  giving  the  power  of  ordaining  quite  free ; 
it  seems  as  if  any  religious  society  might,  consistently 
with  this  Article,  appoint  officers,  with  power  of  Or- 


^8  APPENDIX. 

dination,  bj  election,  representation,  or  lot;  as  if, 
therefore,  the  right  to  ordain  did  not  depend  upon 
any  uninterrupted  succession^''  {Lect  in  Div.  vol.  iv. 
p.  166.)  And  when  we  recollect  the  nature  of  the 
intercourse  and  communion  that  took  place  between 
our  Eeformers  and  those  Churches  and  their  minis- 
ters, both  at  the  time  when  these  Articles  were  first 
drawn  up,  in  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.,  and  at  their 
reestabUshment  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  there  is 
but  one  way  of  accounting  for  a  long  argumentation, 
an  effusion  of  ink  covering  eighteen  pages,  to  prove 
that  by  '-men  to  whom  public  authority  is  given," 
etc.,  the  Article  ^^must  mean  Bishops'^  (!)  and  that 
*'  our  Church  holds  that  the  poicer  of  Ordination  is  in 
Bishops  onlyP     (! !)     (P.  83.) 

Further,  of  the  23d  Article,  the  Bishop  of  Exeter 
says  that  it  asserts  "the  necessity  of  lawful  mission 
generally  in  the  former  of  its  two  propositions — in 
the  latter,  the  necessity  that  this  mission  he  mediately 
from  God^  transmitted  by  succession  from  those 

"WHO,  AT  the   first,  RECEIVED   THE  POWER  OF  THUS 

giving  it  immediately  from  our  Lord  Himself." 
(Pp.  19,  20.)  Such  is  the  doctrine  which  his  Lord- 
ship has  the  courage  to  assert  is  laid  down  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  Article  ! 

He  says :  "  There  are  three  several  members  of  the 
proposition  which  we  are  considering :  I.  That  lawful 
mission  to  the  Christian  ministry  must  be  from  Grod 
by  an  outward  call.  H.  That  we  must  not  look  for 
any  outward  call  from  God  except  mediately  through 
men.  HI.  That  it  must  be  given  through  men  who 
have  themselves  received  the  power  of  transmitting 


APPE:fiDix.  79 

it,  publicly  given  to  them  by  those  who  have  them- 
selves publicly  received  the  power  of  giving  that 
power  from  otliers  similarly  empowered;  in  other 
words,  in  uninterrupted  succession  from  the  Apostles 
themselves."     (P.  20.) 

Now  here  it  is  obvious,  that  his  Lordship  has  drawn 
from  the  Article  propositions  not  contained  in  it. 
The  Article  does  not  touch  the  question  of  the  call 
^''from  God^''  but  only  that  of  the  external  call  by 
men.  To  assert,  therefore,  that  the  Article  says  that 
lawful  mission  must  be  "/rom  God  by  an  outward 
call"  is  a  direct  and  palpable  misrepresentation  of  it. 

And  the  Bishop's  own  authority,  Bishop  Pearson, 
whom  he  so  highly  extols  (p.  52) — and  not  without 
reason — might  have  shown  him,  and  in  the  very  pas- 
sage to  which  he  has  referred  us,  his  error  in  intro- 
ducing these  words  into  the  Article.  For  Bishop 
Pearson,  treating  of  the  mode  of  Ordination  in  the 
Church  of  England,  says:  "Ordinaria  vocatio  fit  a 
Deo  et  per  homines.  Quatenus  est  a  Deo^  est  interna  ; 
quatenus  est  per  homines,  est  externa,"  {Minor 
Theol  Wks.  i.  291,  292.) 

In  defense  of  the  third  proposition,  the  Bishop  ar- 
gues thus  :  That  when  the  Article  says  that  the  per- 
sons through  whom  lawful  mission  must  be  given, 
are  "  men  who  have  public  authority  given  unto  them 
in  the  congregation,"  it  clearly  means  that  this  power 
"  is  so  given  by  God — puhlice  in  Ecclesia  ;  that  is,  in 
some  outward  manner  by  which  it  shall  be  publicly 
known  in  the  Church  to  be  given;"  the  Divine  Being 
being  represented,  after  the  first  bestowal  of  the  power, 
by  a  succession  of  representatives  of  those  to  whom 


80  APPEISTDIX. 

the  power  was  first  given.  For,  says  tlie  Bishop,  "  as 
these  [that  is,  modern  Bishops  who  give  power  of  mis- 
sion] must  in  like  manner  have  received  their  power 
of  mission  from  others,  who  had  received  it  in  Uke 
manner,  the  series  must  be  carried  backwards,  until, 
as  we  before  said,  it  reaches  the  Apostles,  whom  our 
Lord  sent,  ^  as  the  Father  had  sent  Him,'  that  is,  with 
power  to  send  others."     (P.  22.) 

This  is  the  foundation  on  which  his  whole  argu- 
mentation rests;  and  it  is  clearly  derived  from  his 
ADDING  words  to  the  Article  calculated  to  carry  out 
his  own  views.  The  Article  clearly  implies,  that 
there  is  power  in  a  Church  to  authorize  certain  of  its 
members  to  call  and  appoint  others  to  the  office  of 
the  ministry,  which  exactly  meets  the  case  of  the 
Foreign  Protestant  Churches.  The  words  "  authority 
given  unto  them  hy  God  in  the  Congregation,"  are 
very  different  from  what  we  find  in  the  Article. 
They  would  imply  that  the  Congregation,  or  Church, 
had  no  voice  in  the  matter,  and  could  not  authorize 
any  of  their  body  to  do  any  act  of  the  kind.  So  that 
the  words  which  the  Bishop  has  thus  foisted  into  the 
Article  completely  change  the  character  of  its  doc- 
trine. They  just  determine  what  the  Article  has 
studiously  left  open,  and  determine  it  in  opposition 
to  the  known  sentiments  of  those  who  drew  up  the 
Article.  They  make  it  necessary  that  the  mission 
should  be  given  by  some  individual  or  individuals 
specially,  and  individually,  and  j5ublicly  commis- 
sioned by  God  himself,  apart  from  the  Church,  to  be- 
stow it ;  while  the  terms  of  the  Article  imply  that 
God  has  left  sufficient  power  with  the  Church  to  act 
in  such  a  matter. 


APPENDIX.  81 

The  Article  is  evidently  drawn  up  so  as  to  compre- 
hend the  Foreign  Protestant  Churches.  It  does  not 
pretend  to  define  exactly  what  our  own  Church's  par- 
ticular mode  of  calling  and  sending  ministers  is ;  but 
it  states  the  limits  of  what  may  be  considered  a  lawful 
calling.  Most  just  and  pertinent  are  the  remarks  of 
Bishop  Burnet,  in  his  Exposition  of  this  Article : 

"  If,"  he  says,  "  a  company  of  Christians  find  the  public  worship 
where  they  live  to  be  so  defiled  that  they  can  not  with  a  good  con- 
science join  in  it,  and  if  they  do  not  know  of  any  place  to  which 
they  can  conveniently  go,  where  they  may  worship  God  purely  and 
in  a  regular  way  :  if,  I  say,  such  a  Body  finding  some  that  have  been 
ordained,  though  to  the  lower  functions,  should  submit  itself  en- 
tirely to  their  conduct ;  or,  finding  none  of  those,  should  hy  a  com- 
mon consent  desire  some  of  their  own  number  to  ^ninister  to  them  in 
holy  things,  and  should,  upon  that  beginning,  grow  up  to  a  regulated 
constitution,  though  we  are  very  sure  that  this  is  quite  out  of  all  rule, 
and  could  not  be  done  without  a  very  great  sin,  unless  the  necessity 
were  great  and  apparent ;  yet,  if  the  necessity  is  real  and  not  feigned, 
this  is  not  condemned  or  annulled  hy  the  Article  ;  for  when  this 
grows  to  a  constitution,  and  when  it  was  begun  by  the  consent  of  a 
Body  who  are  supposed  to  have  an  authority  in  such  an  extraordi- 
nary case,  whatever  some  hotter  spirits  have  thought  of  this  since 
that  time,  yet  we  are  very  sure,  that  not  only  those  who  penned  the 
Articles,  hut  the  hody  of  this  Church  for  ahove  half  an  age  after, 
did,  notwithstanding  those  irregularities,  acJcjiowledge  the  Foreign 
Churches  so  constituted  to  he  true  Churches  as  to  all  the  essentials  of 
a  Church,  though  they  had  heen  at  first  irregularly  formed,  and  con- 
tinned  still   to   he  in  an  imperfect   state.     And,    therefore,  the 

GENERAL    WORDS    IN    WHICH    THIS    PART   OP   THE  ARTICLE    IS    FRAMED, 
SEEM  TO  HAVE  BEEN  DESIGNED  ON  PURPOSE  NOT  TO  EXCLUDE  THEM." 

In  fact,  the  Article  requires  nothing  more  as  ne- 
cessary for  lawful  calling  than  what  is  required  in  the 
Confessions   of   several  of   the  Foreign   Protestant 
Non-Episcopal  Churches ;  as,  for  instance,  the  Hel- 
4^ 


82  APPENDIX. 

vetic,  (Art.  16,)  Botiemian,  (c.  9,)  and  Belgic,  (Art. 
81.)  And,  therefore,  the  Bishop  might  just  as  well 
attempt  to  fasten  his  doctrine  upon  the  Confessions 
of  these  Non-Episcopal  Churches  as  upon  that  of 
the  Church  of  England. 

And  so  completely  opposed  is  Hooker  to  the 
Bishop's  interpretation  of  the  Article,  that  he  dis- 
tinctly intimates  that  there  is  no  "  heavenly  law" 
whereby  it  may  appear,  ''  that  the  LordIiims3lf  hath 
appointed  presbyters  forever  to  be  under  the  regi- 
ment of  Bishops,"  and  that  "their  authority"  is  "  a 
sword  which  the  Church  hath  power  to  take  from  them^''^ 
(Ecd.  Pol,  vii.  5  ;)  and  expressly  says  that  "  the  whole 
Church  visible"  is  "  the  true  original  subject  of  all 
power  ;"  and  that  though  "  it  hath  not  ordinarily  al- 
lowed any  other  than  Bishops  alone  to  ordain,  how- 
beit,  as  the  ordinary  course  is  ordinarily  in  all  things 
to  be  observed,  so  it  may  be,  in  some  cases,  not  un- 
necessary that  we  decline  from  the  ordinary  ways ; 
and  that  "there  may  be  sometimes  very  just  and 
sufficient  reason  to  allow  Ordination  made  without  a 
Bishop."     {lb.  14.) 

But  the  23d  Article,  says  his  Lordship,  "  leaves  to 
a  subsequent  Article,  the  36th,  to  tell  us  who  they 
are  to  whom  this  power  is  given  ;"  the  36th  Article 
sanctioning  the  Ordinal.     (P.  27.) 

The  Bishop  then  gives  the  passage  thus  :  "To  the 
intent  that  these  Orders  should  be  continued  and 
reverently  used  and  esteemed  in  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land," "no  man  shall  be  accounted  or  taken  to  be  a 
lawful  Bishop,  Priest,  or  Deacon  in  the  Church  of 
England,  or  suffered  to  execute  any  of  the  said  func- 


APPEJ^DIX.  83 

tions,  except  he  be  called,  tried,  examined,  and  ad- 
mitted thereunto,  according  to  the  form  hereafter 
following,  or  hath  formerly  received  Episcopal  consecra- 
tion or  ordination r 

And  in  his  Lordship's  observations  upon  this 
passage,  he  lays  the  greatest  stress  upon  the  conclud- 
ing words:  '^  or  hath  formerly  received  Episcopal 
consecration  or  ordination."  Now  these  words,  as 
his  Lordship  well  knows,  were  not  inserted  till  the 
revision  of  the  Book  in  1661,  by  the  Laudian  di- 
vines, who  then  had  the  upper  hand.  He  knows 
also,  upon  the  testimony  of  Bishop  Cosin  and 
others,^  Ijhig  before  him  when  he  wrote,  that,  in  the 
previous  period  of  our  Church,  persons  having  only 
Presbyterian  Orders  were  admitted  to  minister  in  our 
Church,  and  that  it  was  the  general  opinion  of  the 
Bishops  that  there  was  nothing  to  prevent  this. 
Hence,  not  only  was  there  evidence,  that  our  Church 
admitted  the  validity  of  the  Orders  of  the  Foreign 
Protestant  Churches,  so  far  as  those  churches  them- 
selves were  concerned,  but  persons  so  ordained  were 
allowed  to  minister  in  our  own  Church.  And  the 
insertion  of  those  words  in  1661,  requiring  Episcopal 
Ordination  for  those  who  minister  in  our  Ghurch-^ob' 
viously  with  a  view  to  the  Presbyterians,  who,  in  the 
civil  war,  had  usurped  the  places  of  the  Episcopalian 
clergy — can  not  affect  the  doctrine  of  our  Church  on 
the  abstract  question,  whether  the  Foreign  Protestant 
Churches  are  destitute  of  any  validly  ordained  pas- 
tors. 

*  See  Doctrine,  etc.,  pp.  29,  30. 


84  APPENDIX. 

The  direction  here  given,  as  it  stood  both  before 
and  after  the  Eeview  in  1661,  is  strictly  limited  to 
what  is  required  "  in  the  Church  of  England.''''  There 
is  a  marked  abstinence  from  any  statement  of  the 
necessity  of  Episcopal  Orders  for  a  valid  ministry, 
which  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  that  our  Keform- 
ers  would  have  observed,  if  they  had  held  the  Bishop 
of  Exeter's  notions.  And  when  we  couple  this  with 
their  known  conduct  towards  the  Foreign  Protestant 
Churches,  not  the  smallest  doubt  can  be  left  upon 
the  mind  of  any  reasonable  inquirer  after  the  truth 
that  they  did  not  hold  them. 

But  the  Bishop  supports  his  view  by  two  argu- 
ments. The  first  is  this.    He  says  :  "  If  persons  from 
Berlin  and  Geneva,  calling  themselves  ministers  of 
Christ's  Church,  are  really  such  ministers,  it  would 
be  a  direct  act  of  schism  for  our  Church  to  reject 
their  ministry ;  for  all  who  are  Christ's  ministers  at 
all,  are  His  ministers  throughout  His  whole  Church,'^ 
(P.  30.)     But  what  a  mere  cobweb  is  this !    Has  not 
a  Church  a  right  to  say  to  those  ministers  who  come 
here  from  a  Church  under  a  different  form  of  gov- 
ernment :  "  We  have  laid  down  a  rule  which  we  con- 
sider most  in  accordance  with  Apostolical  usage,  re- 
quiring a  certain  mode  of  introduction  to  the  minis- 
try among  us,  and  we  think  it  inexpedient  to  break 
it  by  admitting  others  not  so  qualified  ?"     Does  it 
follow  from  this,  that  our  Church  holds  them  to  be 
destitute  of  all  right  to  exercise  the  ministerial  ofilce 
any  where?     Where  does  his  Lordship  derive  his 
authority  for  denying  to  his  Church  such  a  pruden- 
tial mode  of  action,  and  shutting  her  up  to  the  alter- 


APPENDIX.  85 

native  of  either  admitting  to  hold  office  in  her  com- 
munion any  minister  of  a  Foreign  Church,  whatever 
its  form  of  government  may  be,  or  denying  that 
such  a  one  has  any  right  to  exercise  the  ministerial 
office  to  any  body  of  Christians  on  the  face  of  the 
earth?  The  fact  is,  that  his  Lordship  has  in  this 
point,  as  well  as  in  his  advocacy  of  the  exclusive  ad- 
missibility of  one  form  of  Ecclesiastical  government, 
been  following  in  the  steps  of  the  early  Puritans. 
His  own  words  are  almost  identical  with  those  of  the 
notorious  Puritan  Travers  to  Archbishop  Whitgift. 
Travers,  to  show  that  he  had  a  right  to  be  allowed  to 
minister  in  the  Church  of  England,  though  having 
only  Presbyterian  Orders,  (and  he  could  hardly  be 
said  to  have  any,)  urged,  that,  "the  universal  and 
perpetual  practice  of  all  Christendom,  in  all  places, 
and  in  all  ages,  proveth  the  ministers  lawfully  made 
in  any  Church  of  sound  profession  in  faith,  ought  to 
be  acknowledged  such  in  any  other ;"  he  means,  so 
as  to  be  allowed  to  minister  in  it.  To  which  Arch- 
bishop Whitgift  (who,  as  we  know  from  his  writings, 
admitted  the  validity  of  the  Orders  of  the  Foreign  Pro- 
testant Churches^  but  held  that  "  the  laius  of  this  realm 
require  that  such  as  are  to  be  allowed  as  ministers  in 
this  Church  of  England  should  be  ordered  by  a  Bishop^ 
and  subscribe  to  the  Articles  before  him")  replies  to 
the  argument  thus:  "Excepting  always  such 
Churches  as  allow  of  Presbytery,  and  practise  it." 
He  considered  that  in  such  a  case  an  Episcopal 
Church  might  fairly  object  to  one  not  ordained  as  she 
required,  acting  as  one  of  her  own  ministers.  But 
he  did  not  deny  the  validity  of  Presbyterian  Orders 


86  APPENDIX. 

in  the  abstract.  In  tlie  same  paper  to  wliich  I  am 
now  referring,  lie  admits  that  Whittingham  '^  was  or- 
dained minister  bj  those  which  had  authority  in  the 
Church"  in  which  he  was  ordained,  though  he  held 
such  Orders  not  a  sufficient  qualification  for  minister- 
ing in  the  Church  of  England.  (See  Stnjpe's  Whit- 
gift,  App.  bk.  3,  n.  30.) 

The  second  argument  is  this,  that  if  any  of  the 
ministers  of  Non-Episcopal  Churches  wish  to  be  min- 
isters of  the  Church  of  England,  ''  they  must,  as  a 
preliminary,  renounce  all  claim  at  present  to  any 
ministerial  character  whatsoever,"  and  "  present  them- 
selves as  lay  candidates  for  holy  orders  ;"  ^'  and  yet 
for  our  Church  thus  to  insist  on  their  submitting  to 
be  ordained  anew,  if  they  already  have  Orders, 
would  be,  not  merely  an  act  of  schism,  hut  a  manifest 
desecration  of  Christ's  ordinance,  a  most  sinful  rejection 
of  His  commission.''''     (Pp.  30,  31.) 

High-sounding  words  these,  no  doubt,  and  very 
characteristic  of  their  author.  But  the  question  is, 
Wliat  truth  is  there  in  them  ?  None  at  all.  There 
is  no  such  ^^  renunciation"  required.  And  the  whole 
notion  about  the  ''  desecration  of  Christ's  ordinance" 
involved  in  such  a  step,  is  entirely  opposed  to  the 
views  of  our  best  divines  of  all  parties.  What  does 
Archbishop  Bramhall  says  in  his  Letters  of  Orders, 
when  ordaining  one  who  had  previously  had  only 
Scotch  Presbyterian  Orders :  "  iVb/i  annihilantes 
priores  ordines,  (si  quos  liabuit,)  nee  invaliditatem 
eorundem  deter minantes,  multo  minus  omnes  ordines 
sacros  Ecclesiarum  Forinsecarum  condemnantes,  quos 
proprio  Judici  relinquimus,  sed   solummodo   sup- 


APPENDIX.  B1 

PLENTES,  quicquid  prius  defuit  per  canones  Ecclesice 
Anglicanoe  requisitum^  et  providentes  paci  Ecclesise, 
ut  schismatis  tullatur  occasio,  et  conscientiis  fidelium 
satisfiat,  nee  ulli  dubitent  de  ejus  ordinatione,  ant 
actus  sous  presbjteriales  tanquam  iiivalidos  aversen- 
tur."    {Works^  Oxf.  ed.  vol.  i.  p.  xxxvii.) 

L:t  his  Lordship's  friends  determine  which  is  the 
best  authority,  the  Bishop  of  Exeter  or  Archbishop 
Bramhall. 

But,  as  this  is  an  important  point,  I  shall  add  some 
farther  testimonies. 

And,  first,  let  us  hear  the  opinion  of  Archbishop 
Leighton,  one  whose  learning  as  well  as  piety  is  un- 
questionable. When  consecrated  Bishop,  in  1661, 
by  some  of  the  English  bishops,  he  was  required  by 
them  to  submit  to  be  first  ordained  Deacon  and 
Priest,  on  the  ground  partly  of  the  Act  of  Uni- 
formity, and  partly  that,  though  it  might  be  reasona- 
ble to  allow  Presbyterian  Orders  under  some  circum- 
stances, yet  that  his  had  been  received  from  those 
who  were  in  a  state  of  schism,  and  had  without  rea- 
son revolted  from  their  bishops.  And  Leighton's 
view  on  the  subject  is  thus  stated  by  his  intimate 
friend.  Bishop  Burnet :  "  Leighton  did  not  stand 
much  upon  it.  lie  did  not  think  Orders  given  without 
bishops  were  null  and  void.  He  thought  the  forms  of 
government  were  not  settled  by  such  positive  laws  as 
were  unalterable ;  but  only  by  Apostolic  practices, 
which,  as  he  thought,  authorized  Episcopacy  as  the 
best  form.  Yet  he  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  the 
being  of  a  Church.  But  he  thought  that  every  Church 
might  make  such  rules  of  Ordination  as  they  pleased. 


88  APPENDIX. 

and  that  they  might  re'ordain  all  that  came  to  them  from 
any  other  Church  ;  and  that  the  reordaining  a  priest  or- 
dained in  another  Church  im^ported  no  more  hut  that  they 
received  him  into  Orders  according  to  their  rules,  and  did 
not  infer  the  annulling  the  Orders  he  had  formerly  re- 
ceivedy     {Hist,  of  his  Own  Times,  vol.  i.  p.  140.) 

The  testimony  of  A^rchbishop  Leighton,  therefore, 
is  directly  against  the  Bishop  on  all  the  points  of  the 
case. 

But  a  still  more  important  testimony  perhaps  than 
even  these  is  that  of  the  learned  Bingham,  the  au- 
thor of  the  Antiquities  of  the  Christian  Church.  He 
says,  in  his  French  Church's  Apology  for  the  Church  of 
England  : 

"  Nor  do  I  see  what  can  be  urged  farther  in  this  case,  unless  it  be  the 
business  of  reordination,  which  some  reckon  so  great  a  charge  against 
the  Act  of  Uniformity ;  because  it  obliges  every  beneficiary  to  receive 
Episcopal  ordination,  according  to  the  form  and  rites  of  the  Church 
of  England.  But  what  harm  there  is  in  this,  I  confess  I  7iever  yet 
could  see  ;  and  I  am  sure  there  is  nothing  in  it  contrary  to  the  princi- 
ples or  practice  of  Geneva,  nor  perhaps  of  the  whole  French  Church. 
For  at  Geneva  it  is  their  common  practice,  whenever  they  remove  a 
minister  from  one  Church  to  another,  to  give  him  a  new  and  solemn 
ordination  by  imposition  of  hands  and  prayer.  .  .  .  Now,  if  it 
be  lawful,  by  the  rules  of  the  Church  of  Geneva,  for  a  minister  to 
receive  a  new  solemn  ordination,  when  he  is  translated  from  one 
Church  to  another ;  why  can  not  men  in  England  consent  to  receive 
a  new  ordination,  when  the  law  requires  it,  in  order  to  settle  them- 
selves regularly  in  any  Church  ?  especially  when  it  is  for  the  sake  of 
peace  and  union,  and  to  take  ofif  all  manner  of  doubtfulness  and  scru- 
ples from  the  people.  /  dispute  not  now,  whether  their  former  ordina- 
tions were  valid  [this  question,  we  see,  he  does  not  consider  to  affect 
the  point  to  be  determined,  namely,  whether  they  could  properly 
submit  to  reordination] ;  it  is  certain,  they  are  not  more  valid  than 
those  of  Geneva ;  nor  can  they  themselves  think  them  more  valid 


APPENDIX.  89 

than  the  ministers  of  Geneva  think  theirs ;  wherefore,  if  it  be  lawful 
at  Geneva  for  a  minister  to  receive  a  new  ordination,  because  the 
laws  require  it,  I  do  not  see  what  can  make  it  unlawful  in  England  to 
submit  to  the  same  thing,  in  compliance  with  the  law,  when  men  have 
no  other  regular  way  to  settle  themselves  in  any  cure ;  lei  their  opinion 
of  their  former  ordination  he  what  it  will,  which  comes  not  into  the 
PRESENT  DISPUTE.  For  cvcu  supposiug  their  former  ordination  [that  is, 
the  Presbyterian  in  this  country']  to  he  valid^  I  show  they  may  submit 
to  a  new  ordination  without  sin;  and  if  the  will  be  peaceable,  they 
ought  to  do  it,  after  the  example  of  Geneva,  rather  than  set  up  sep- 
arate meetings  and  preach  against  the  will  of  their  superiors,  to  the 
disturbance  of  the  peace  of  the  Church."  {Bingham's  Works,  vol. 
ix.  ed.  1845,  pp.  296,  297.) 


APPENDIX  B. 

ON  THE   MEANING   OF   THE   TEEM    "DIVINE 
INSTITUTION." 

{From  reply  to  Mr.  Harrington,) 

It  would  surely  have  been  more  unambiguous  to 
speak  of  the  Apostolical  institution  of  Episcopacy, 
than  to  use  the  epithet  Divine,  I  am  quite  aware  that 
it  has  been  frequently  used,  and  also  of  the  sense  in 
which  it  may  be  legitimately  applied ;  but  I  am  also 
aware,  that  whenever  the  matter  has  been  contro- 
verted, it  has  been  found  necessary  to  point  out  two 
or  three  senses  in  which  the  word  "Divine"  may  be 
used,  and  (with  very  few  exceptions)  to  admit  that  in 
one  only  is  it  applicable  to  the  origin  of  Episcopacy, 
namely,  as  instituted  by  men  divinely  inspired ;  and 
in  a  formal  definition  of  this  kind,- a  vague  phrase- 
ology is  surely  to  be  avoided.     Now  of  the  Apostoli- 


90  APPENDIX. 

cal  institution  of  Episcopacy  I  make  no  doubt ;  but 
then  I  have  equally  little  doubt  of  tlie  Apostolical 
institution  of  the  practice  of  anointing  the  sick  with 
oil.  And  though  I  would  not  place  the  importance 
of  one  on  a  par  with  the  importance  of  the  other,  yet 
if  the  mere  fact  of  a  thing  having  been  Apostolically 
instituted,  renders  its  observance  indispensably  neces- 
sary in  all  ages  and  all  parts  of  the  Church  of  Christ, 
the  one  of  these  is  as  indispensably  necessary  as  the 
other.  And  if  this  argument  does  not  hold  good, 
then  the  argument  of  Mr.  Harrington  for  the  indis- 
pensable necessity  of  Episcopacy  from  this  fact  falls 
to  the  ground. 


APPENDIX  C. 

ON  THE  MEANING  OF  THE  TERM  "NECESSITY"  WHEN 
USED  BY  SOME  OF  OUR  DIVINES  AS  ALONE  JUSTI- 
FYING  PRESBYTERIAN   ORDINATION. 

{Reply  to  Harrington.) 

It  is  often  said,  that  such  and  such  Presbyterian 
Churches  might  now,  if  they  pleased,  receive  Epis- 
copacy from  more  than  one  Episcopal  Church,  and, 
therefore,  that  they  can  not  urge  the  plea  of  necessity. 
But  it  is  clear  that  the  word  necessity  was  not  used 
by  them  in  this  strict  sense.  I  refer,  in  proof  of  this, 
to  the  language  of  Saravia  and  Crakanthorp,"  both 
of  them  men  in  the  highest  repute  with  my  oppo- 

*  See  Doctrine,  etc.,  pp.  22,  39. 


APPENDIX.  91 

nents ;  and  tlie  latter  of  wliom  distinctly  says,  speak- 
ing of  his  wish  that  those  Churches  would  avail  them- 
selves of  the  opportunity  they  then  possessed  of  ob- 
taining Episcopal  Orders,  ^^  sed  optamus^  non  cogimus: 
jus  et  iinperium  in  eorum  Ecclesias  nee  hahemus  nos^  nee 
desideramusr  And  this  opportunity  they  have  had 
for  more  than  two  centuries  just  as  much  as  at  the 
present  day  ;  so  that  all  the  testimonies  of  our  divines 
since  that  period,  such  as  Mason,  Cosin,  etc.  etc.,  were 
written  under  similar  circumstances  to  those  which, 
now  exist. 

It  is  clear,  also,  that  when  Saravia  spoke  of  neces- 
sity, he  was  alluding  to  a  necessity  arising  from  the 
corruption  of  the  Bishops  in  any  particular  Church 
for  the  sound  presbyters  of  that  Church  to  perpetuate 
their  order  by  admitting  others  to  it  themselves, 
though  under  ordinary  circumstances  they  would  have 
had  no  right  to  do  so.  He  was  contemplating  each. 
Church  as  an  independent  community  that  had  a  right 
to  order  its  own  affairs. 

And  when  it  is  urged,  that  no  necessity  exists  now 
for  the  Foreign  Eeformed  Churches  lacking  Episco- 
pacy, because  certain  Episcopal  Churches  would  give 
them  Bishops,  I  am  much,  inclined  to  doubt  whether 
even  this  could  be  proved,  for  there  may  be  still  many 
impediments,  some  arising  out  of  their  relations  to 
the  different  States  in  which  they  are  found,  to  their 
reception  of  Episcopacy,  whatever  may  be  tke  willing- 
ness of  other  Ohurcbes  to  give  it  to  them. 


92  APPENDIX. 

APPENDIX  D. 

0]Sr  THE   MEANING   OF   THE   TERM   JUS   DIVINUM. 

{Reply  to  Bishop  of  Exeter.) 

Bishop  Sanderson  points  out  two  different  senses 
of  tlie  phrase  jus  divinum^  observing : 

"Sometimes  it  importeth  a  Divine  precept  (which  is  indeed  the 
primary  and  most  proper  signification)  when  it  appeareth  by  some 
clear,  express,  and  peremptory  command  of  God  in  His  Word,  to  be 
the  will  of  God  that  the  thing  so  commanded  should  be  perpetually 
and  universally  observed.  Of  which  sort,  setting  aside  the  Articles 
of  the  Creed,  and  the  moral  duties  of  the  law,  (which  are  not  much 
pertinent  to  the  present  inquiry,)  there  are,  as  I  take  it,  very  few 
things  that  can  be  said  to  be  of  Divine  positive  right  under  the 
New  Testament.  TJie  preaching  of  the  Gospel  and  administration 
of  the  Sacraments  are  two  ;  which,  when  I  have  named,  1  think  I 
have  named  all.  But  there  is  a  secondary  and  more  extended  signi- 
fication of  that  term,  which  is  also  of  frequent  use  among  divines. 
In  which  sense  such  things  as,  having  no  express  command  in  the 
Word,  yet  are  found  to  have  authority  and  warrant  from  the  institu- 
tion, example,  and  approbation  either  of  Christ  Himself  or  His 
Apostles ;  and  have  (in  regard  of  the  importance  and  usefulness  of 
the  things  themselves)  been  held,  by  the  consentient  judgment  of  all 
the  Churches  of  Christ  in  the  primitive  and  succeeding  ages,  needful 
to  be  continued ;  such  things  I  say  are  (though  not  so  properly  as 
the  former,  yet)  usually  and  interpretative  said  to  be  of  Divine 
right.  Of  which  sort  I  take  the  observation  of  the  Lord's  day,  the 
ordering  the  keys,  the  distinction  of  presbyters  and  deacons,  and 
some  other  things  (not  all  perhaps  of  equal  consequence)  to  be. 
Unto  Jus  Divinum  in  that  former  acceptation,  is  required  a  Divine 
precept ;  in  this  latter,  it  sufi&ceth  thereunto  that  a  thing  be  of  Apos- 
tolical institution  or  practice.     Which  ambiguity  is  the  more  to  be 


APPENDIX.  93 

heeded,  for  that  the  observation  thereof  is  of  great  use  for  the 
avoiding  of  sundry  mistakes,  that  through  the  ignorance  or  neglect 
thereof  daily  happen  to  the  engaging  of  men  in  endless  disputes, 
and  entangling  their  consciences  in  unnecessary  scruples." 

And  having  thus  pointed  out  these  two  senses  of 
the  term  Jus  Divinum^  he  proceeds  to  show  in  what 
manner  the  phrase  is  to  be  applied  in  the  matter  of 
Episcopacy.     And  he  says : 

"  Now  that  the  government  of  the  Churches  of  Christ  by  bishops 
is  of  Divine  right  in  that  first  and  stricter  sense,  is  an  opinion  at 
least  of  great  probability,  and  such  as  may  more  easily  and  upon 
better  grounds  be  defended  than  confuted.  .  .  .  Yet  because  it 
is  both  inexpedient  to  maintain  a  dispute  where  it  needs  not,  and 
needless  to  contend  for  more,  where  less  will  serve  the  turn  ;  I  find 
that  our  divines  that  have  travailed  most  in  this  argument,  where 
they  purposely  treat  of  it,  do  rather  choose  to  stand  to  the  tenure  of 
Episcopacy  ex  Apostolica  designatione^  than  to  hold  a  contest  upon 
the  title  of  Jus  Divinum,  no  necessity  requiring  the  same  to  be 
done.  They,  therefore,  that  so  speak  of  this  government  as  estab- 
lished by  Divine  right,  are  not  all  of  them  necessarily  so  to  be  under- 
stood, as  if  they  meant  it  in  that  first  and  stricter  one.  Sufficient  it 
is  for  the  justification  of  the  Church  of  England  in  the  constitution 
and  government  thereof,  that  it  is  (as  certainly  it  is)  of  Divine  right 
in  the  latter  and  larger  signification :  that  is  to  say,  of  Apostolical 
institution  and  approbation ;  exercised  by  the  Apostles  themselves, 
and  by  other  persons  in  their  times,  appointed  and  enabled  thereunto 
by  them,  according  to  the  will  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  by 
virtue  of  the  commission  they  had  received  from  him.'' 

So  that  all  he  ventures  to  say  in  favor  of  Episco- 
pacy being  jure  divino  in  the  strict  sense  of  the 
phrase — which  alone  would  make  it  of  absolute  ne- 
cessity— is  that  it  appears  to  him  to  be  "  an  opinion 
at  least  of  great  probability  ;"  and  he  admits,  that 
our  divines  for  the  most  part  only  contend  for  the 
apostolical  institution  of  Episcopacy. 


94  APPENDIX. 

He  then  remarks,  that  this  latter  view  is  "a  part 
of  the  established  doctrine  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land," (in  which  I  entirely  agree  with  him,)  and  that 
it  "  hath  been  constantly  and  uniformly  maintained 
by  our  best  writers,  and  by  all  the  sober,  orderly, 
and  orthodox  sons  of  this  Church."  {Episcop.  not 
prejud.  to  Reg,  Power ^  Lond.  1673,  Sec.  II.  §§  3-6.) 

The  latter  is  a  somewhat  large  assertion,  but  no 
doubt  true  of  a  great  majority  of  such  divines.  But 
then,  as  I  have  already  abundantly  shown,  those 
among  them  who  held  this  view  maintained  also  the 
validity  under  some  circumstances  of  Presbyterian 
Ordinations. 


APPENDIX  E. 

MORALITY     OF     TRACTARIA:N'ISM. 

{Introduction  to  Vindication.) 

There  is  nothing  more  painful  perhaps  in  the 
whole  Tractarian  movement,  than  the  frequent  dis- 
regard to  truth  by  which,  throughout  its  course,  it 
has  been  characterized.  Men  entertaining  Tractarian 
views  are  in  a  false  position  in  our  Church,  and  conse- 
quently are  continually  driven  into  all  sorts  of  incon- 
sistencies and  offenses  against  truth.  And  no  decla- 
matory asseverations  of  their  doctrines  being  the 
genuine  doctrines  of  the  Church  of  England  can  de- 
ceive any  who  give  the  slightest  attention  to  the  sub- 
ject, and   desire   to   know   the   truth.     They  com- 


APPENDIX.  95 

menced  with  a  profession  of  slavish  submission  to 
bishops ;  and  their  doctrine  demands  it  of  them. 
Their  conduct  is  the  very  reverse,  to  a  degree  that 
make  us  compare  it  with  thankfulness  with  that  of 
the  supposed  undervaluers  of  the  Episcopate,  the,  to 
use  the  ordinary  name.  Evangelical  body,  towards 
other  prelates  in  past  times.  Their  Catenas  parade 
with  the  most  unblushing  effrontery  the  names  of 
divines  who  have  directly  and  clearly  opposed  their 
views,  as  of  advocates  in  their  favor.  The  interpre- 
tation they  are  compelled  to  give  to  our  Articles  and 
Formularies  (to  say  nothing  of  the  veil  of  secresy 
thrown  over  their  practices)  is  such  as  to  make  the 
more  honest  among  their  disciples  writhe  under  the 
consciousness  of  the  duplicity  of  the  course  marked 
out  for  them.  This  is  not  the  mere  accusation  of  an 
opponent ;  it  is  the  confession  of  those  who  have 
belonged  to  them.  Witness  (to  refer  to  no  other  au- 
thority) the  pamphlet,  not  long  since  published,  enti- 
tled The  Morality  of  Tractarianism,  Whenever  they 
have  tried  their  ground  before  a  public  tribunal,  they 
have  been  utterly  defeated.  In  the  face  of  facts  like 
these,  frothy  declamations,  protesting  that  they  are 
the  true  exponents  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of 
England,  will  deceive  none  but  those  who  wish  to  be 
deceived. 


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